AN OPEN LETTER TO THE HON’BLE CJI AND ALL OTHER HON’BLE JUDGES OF SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ranjan Gogoi
The Chief Justice Of India,                                            Dated: 27 March, 2019.

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice N.V. Ramana,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Arun Mishra,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice R.F. Nariman,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre,

Hon'ble Mrs. Justice R. Banumathi,

 Hon'ble Mr. Justice Uday Umesh Lalit,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.M. Khanwilkar,

Hon'ble Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud,

 Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ashok Bhushan,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice L. Nageswara Rao,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice S. Abdul Nazeer,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Navin Sinha,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Deepak Gupta,

Hon'ble Ms. Justice Indu Malhotra,

Hon'ble Ms. Justice Indira Banerjee,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Vineet Saran,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice K.M. Joseph,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Hemant Gupta,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice R.Subhash Reddy,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Mukeshkumar Rasikbhai Shah,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Rastogi,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Dinesh Maheshwari,

Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sanjiv Khanna’

Supreme Court of India,

New Delhi.

         Subject:  Fate of Writ Petition (C) no. 1163/2017 in Hon’ble Supreme Court of

                       India on continuing Fraudulent Cricket – a source of terror funding.              

                         

Dear Sir / Madam,

I write this with a sense of awe, considering your stature and power, but as the Noble Prize Laureate Gunter Grass had said in his famous poem, ‘I’ll say what must be said.’ I shall divide my submission in three parts: A. The Bare Facts, B. The Meaning Thereof, C. Summing Up.

A.   The Bare Facts

It was recently reported that on the 13^th December, 2018, a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta told a petitioner seeking directions for immediate execution of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, “….You are making the court a joke.”

A few days earlier to that, the Hon’ble CJI, Justice Ranjan Gogoi was reported as having quoted in late November. 2018, “It is in our best interest to heed the advice of the Constitution. If we do not, our hubris will result in a sharp descent into chaos.”

About a week later, the retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Kurian Joseph was reported having said in reference to their much publicized and controversial press conference (by him and three other Supreme Court judges including the present CJI) in January, 2018, that they felt then CJI was being remote-controlled.

Against above background, kindly peruse the following bare facts that are a matter of record in relation to a PIL filed in the Supreme Court of India through the subject petition WP (C) 1163/2017.

I, along with a co-petitioner, the eminent journalist and writer Mr Shantanu Guha Ray, filed the above mentioned writ petition. The following link gives the full text of it: https://www.livelaw.in/cleaning-cricket-retired-rly-officer-scribe-move-sc-seeking-stay-ipl-leagues-check-match-fixing-read-petition/ I reproduce below the synopsis as filed to give you a sense of the PIL and the issues involved:

 “On the very outset, the petitioners aver that in filing this petition they are acting with utmost sense of responsibility. This is a petition in the public interest by two petitioners, Atul Kumar and Shantanu Guha Ray, seeking action/intervention by the Hon’ble Supreme Court to put a break to the ongoing open massive fraud through cricket that is mostly scripted and fixed. The fixing and fraud are so deep rooted and institutionalized that one would find it very difficult to imagine and believe. The petitioners have been compelled to petition the Hon’ble Court since all the agencies who should have acted to stem this rot have failed to do so despite repeated pleadings to them by the petitioners for years and despite fraud having become brazen. The agencies include ICC, BCCI, and Government/Union of India.

Sufficient material has been brought on record through this petition to bring above home to a logical mind. A lot more lies in the public domain through books, press coverage and public posts on the subject. No one in authority has been looking at it or applying mind to it. Mathematical and hence scientific proof for continuous institutionalized fixing of cricket matches is in public domain unchallenged and uncontested for more than three years and has withstood the test of time.

This massive fraud continuing through cricket is immensely harmful to the masses and the nation in more ways than one. Masses who don’t bet on cricket matches get cheated emotionally, the most telling recent example being inexplicable and conspicuous underperformance by World number one Indian team against Pakistan in the ICC champions Trophy final in June, 2017. This match was widely believed to be fixed and millions of Indians suffered emotionally. Masses still don’t know and don’t realize that fixing of that match was no exception. They are unaware what and how serious the implications of fixed cricket are.

Those who bet on cricket matches get cheated financially as well. There are millions of them in India alone. Matches in all the formats of the game are so scripted as to make bettors addicted and make them lose heavily to the betting syndicates match after match, session after session. Law Commission of India has termed illegal betting market in India as parallel economy. SIT on black money appointed by Hon’ble Supreme Court itself has estimated the Indian cricket betting market to be more than Rs 3 lakh crore per year. With other estimates it is likely to be much more than that. Hon’ble Supreme Court itself has found even IPL team owners guilty of betting on IPL/cricket matches in the past. Dawood Ibrahim has been known to have been controlling cricket betting syndicates, and an unknown chunk of big money earned by betting syndicates through fixed cricket goes to terror funding. The cricketing legends, cricket experts, cricket broadcasters, cricket commentators and cricket journalists are acting akin to drug peddlers selling fake cricket for the benefit of the betting syndicates to the gullible masses hooked on to it.

Turning of almost a blind eye by media at large to institutionalized total fixing of cricket even though it throws up sporadic news on fixing now and then, and inaction by the highest authorities of the country, both executive and judicial, so far on all that is in public domain and on the repeated pleadings by Petitioner no. 1, who has been acting as a responsible member of the society exposing for years this massive fraud with very grave national and international implications at great personal cost and risk (acting against the interests of a big mafia) with no protection and without much support from any quarter in the society, has brought the things to such a pass that people without any fear are today openly telling and showing using social media that matches were fixed and charging money for giving inside information, purposefully wrong at times, to rob the addicted and trapped

bettors for the benefit of betting syndicates linked to terror funding. Matches are so scripted that addiction continues reinforced. The fraud and the crime are being flaunted openly as if there is no governance left in cricket and in the country. All the authorities, multitude of them in India alone, seem to be taking pride in acting blind. 

With overwhelming material on record to establish all above, the petition primarily requests for a thorough, meaningful and honest investigation by a Court appointed SIT to unearth the total modus operandi of this massive fraud through continuous fixing in cricket matches to bring all the culprits to book. It also requests for a stay on IPL or any other such leagues like KPL, TNPL etc from taking place in the country till culprits are brought to book or the SIT formed decides and recommends lifting the stay. Strictly speaking other international cricket matches should also be stayed from taking place in the country if so possible. That will go a long way in controlling this monstrous fraud and stem the rot.

Immediate effective action is a must since big crime continues to take place openly in the country through almost every match being played and broadcast. A body blow to this monster will send a strong message to all those in authority as well as the masses in the country that ‘der hai andher nahin’ and will desist them from corrupt practices and activities that appear to be becoming order of the day. Vice versa of it will also hold. If this brazen massive fraud, with more and more people becoming aware of it, continues unbridled, demoralization and degradation of the society as a whole will continue to increase.”

The case was first listed on 2/2/2018 in Court no. 1, the bench comprising of HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE, HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.M. KHANWILKAR and HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE D.Y. CHANDRACHUD. The Court passed the following order:

“Let a copy of this petition be served on the Central Agency so that it can make arrangements for the counsel for the Union of India to assist the Court. List on 16th February 2018.”

The case was then listed on the 16^th Feb, 2018, but unfortunately I had to seek adjournment due to sad demise of my mother in the early hours of the 13^th February, 2018. Accordingly, the Hon’ble Court passed the following order on the 16^th:

“List the matter after two weeks.”

Before next listing, the BCCI also themselves became a party to the case through filing a caveat. The copies of the petition and I.A.’s (interlocutory applications) were duly served on them by us.

Thereafter the listing of case continued to be postponed repeatedly. I continued to pursue through letter after letter, through email and post, to the Registrar, Supreme Court of India and the Hon’ble Chief Justice. The correspondence between me and the Hon’ble Court in the intervening period should be available in the case file. At last, the case was suddenly listed on the 7^th May, 2018, the listing date having been shown to be in October, 2018 on the Supreme Court website prior to that.

Not a word was uttered or submitted in writing either by UOI or BCCI against the contents of the petition, nor did the Hon’ble Court make any comment at all, before passing the following order on the 7^th May, 2018:

“Heard Mr. Atul Kumar, the petitioner No.1 appearing in-person and Mr. Parag P. Tripathi, learned senior counsel appearing for the Committee of Administrators. In our considered opinion, the Committee of Administrators may take a decision with regard to the grievance made in this writ petition and submit a report, which shall be considered in the main proceedings that relates to B.C.C.I. The petitioners are at liberty to assist in the main case. With the aforesaid liberty and direction, the writ petition stands disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs. The interlocutory applications, if any, stand disposed of.”

Mr Parag P Tripathi briefly argued against this, but the Hon’ble Court went ahead with the above order.

As a follow up to this order, I wrote to Sh. Vinod Rai, the Head of the Committee of Administrators (COA) for BCCI, requesting him to give me a hearing to be able to explain things to him across the table through a letter dated 14/5/2018, bringing out the salient points of the petition also for his ready reference. Not hearing from him, I sent a reminder dated 31/5/2018. Finally I got the following e-mail dated 9/6/2018 from the Committee of Administrators:

“Dear Mr. Atul Kumar,

1. The Committee of Administrators has received a letter from you on 18^th May 2018 enclosing a copy of the order dated 7^th May 2018 (“Order”) passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1163 of 2017 (“Writ Petition”). The Committee of Administrators has also received your second letter dated 31^st May 2018 on 4^th June 2018.

2. The Committee of Administrators is aware of the gravity of the issues raised in the Writ Petition and is currently in the process of reviewing the existing rules/ regulations/ mechanisms/ measures that have been put in place by the BCCI to prevent and/or otherwise deal with fixing and other similar corrupt activities in cricket matches.

3. The Committee of Administrators believes that it will be more fruitful and constructive to have a discussion/ hearing on the issues raised in the Writ Petition once the above

exercise has been completed. Please be assured that no decision/ report in terms of the Order will be taken/ submitted before such discussion/ hearing with you.

Thanking you.

Yours faithfully,

The Supreme Court Appointed Committee of Administrators”

Further interaction took place between the COA and me, the COA asking for my suggestions as below before the meeting:

‘ (a) Your suggestions/ inputs on what mechanisms/ measures the BCCI can put in place to prevent and/or otherwise deal with fixing and other similar corrupt activities in cricket matches; and

(b) Your suggestions/ inputs on what assistance/ support other agencies (including agencies of the Government of India and/or States) can be requested to provide to the BCCI for the purpose of preventing and/or otherwise dealing with fixing and other similar corrupt activities in cricket matches. ’

I sent them the necessary suggestions which were relevant to the issue as brought out in the petition. Finally the meeting took place between us - the petitioners - and the COA along with paraphernalia of their officials and legal advisors on the 17^th July, 2018 at New Delhi.

I briefly summed up and recorded what transpired in the meeting through an email to COA and copy to others on the same afternoon. The same is reproduced below:

“ Atul Kumar

Tue 17/07/2018 15:32

Committee of Administrators;

Rahul Johri;

Karina Kripalani;

shantanunewshound@gmail.com



This is to convey thanks for holding the meeting today and to put the outcome of the meeting in a perspective (in confidence).

It was disappointing to learn that the purpose of this meeting was primarily only to hear us out and the meeting was not to be much interactive as COA was not to apprise us of their viewpoint. However, still the following transpired as a result of brief discussion that took place: 

1. COA indicated that it would recommend to the Hon'ble Court to order thorough investigation into the tweets by @theDcricket for over a year now. Though it is extremely unfortunate that such an action has not yet been initiated by the concerned authorities, we applaud the indicated action by the COA. An honest and thorough interrogation/investigation of him/his affairs would definitely help spill many beans and many skeletons will come out of the cupboard. That alone will be a significant step in the right direction. 
2. COA indicated that they were as concerned about the state of affairs as us, the petitioners. Though they felt that the solutions suggested by us were rather impractical. We maintain that the solutions suggested, though may appear to be extra-ordinary, were necessitated considering how bad things were and given the very grave and serious implications of how things are continuing.
3. Nevertheless we requested that COA might please go ahead with practical solutions such that the action taken should have some telling effect given how wrong things had gone, at least to make a significant start.
4. To that effect, it was suggested to get the IPL 10 final that was under shadow for fixing as detailed in the Writ Petition to be investigated in a transparent manner by the Police/concerned authorities, with public knowledge so that a message goes out to restore some of the public confidence. But BCCI officials wanted the investigation to be by ACU in a confidential manner. The COA appeared to be agreeing to that. We still feel that such an investigation may not serve much purpose and there was a stronger possibility of things being swept under the carpet in due course with an in house investigation by BCCI. The COA may kindly take final call in this regard.
5. The COA indicated their inclination to strengthen ACU and to put a strong ACU in place to instill fear in the minds of evil-doers. This was welcome, reiterating that implementation and putting the ACU to effective use were more necessary, mere making of regulations without implementation didn't mean much as the past results/present state of affairs showed.
6. The meeting ended on a rather positive note, giving us hope that something effective and good may eventually come out of it  in the larger public and collective national interest.

  It is requested that the COA while submitting their report to the Hon'ble Supreme Court in terms of their order dated 7/5/18 in WP ( C ) 1163/2017 may also please convey the inputs/suggestions given by me earlier in deference to the COA's desire, to the Hon'ble Supreme Court with/without COA's comments as deemed fit.

        

Regards

Atul Kumar  “

There was never any rejoinder to this by the COA or anybody else. The Committee of Administrators finally made and submitted their report dated 22/10/2018 on the subject petition and also posted its text on the website of BCCI, the link for same being:   http://relaunch-live.s3.amazonaws.com/cms/documents/5bd95399b2f6c-COA%20Report%20in%20Writ%20Petition%20filed%20by%20Atul%20Kumar%20(23%2010%202018).PDF  .

I sent rejoinder dated 14/11/2018 to this report bringing out how it had been nothing but a sham, a conspicuous act of cheating, and a mockery of sense of justice, requesting COA to post this rejoinder also on the website of BCCI. Neither that has been done nor any response to the rejoinder has been received by me till date. The text of rejoinder is also available on my blog http://atulonly.blogspot.com/  through a post dated 28/1/2019. This rejoinder was also duly sent to the Registrar, Supreme Court of India through post as well as email. 

In the meantime, to be able to assist the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the main case concerning BCCI in deference to the Hon’ble Court’s order dated 7/5/2018 in WP (C) 1163/2017, on 18^th July, 2018 I filed Impleadment Application i.e. IA (no. 91439/18) in that case (no. CA 4235/2014) pending before the Court. But that IA is not yet listed, the Registrar’s office continuing to insist that there was no order passed by the Court giving me liberty to assist in that case. The relevant portion of letter no. D. No. 24114/2013/Sec.III dated 25^th July 2018 from Assistant Registrar, Supreme Court of India is reproduced below verbatim:

“ …….. you have stated in the letter that regarding permission to implead in the matter, Hon’ble Court vide order dated 7.5.2018 has already permitted you to assist in the above said case but there is no order passed by the Hon’ble Court for the above said date……” (The Registrar’s office thus refused to take any cognizance of the Hon’ble Court’s order passed in WP (C) 1163/2017 giving petitioners the liberty to assist the Hon’ble Court in the main case concerning BCCI, despite copy of that order having been documented in the IA (impleadment application), and my repeatedly having drawn attention to that in answering the objections thereafter.) 

My last few letters and emails to the Registrar further on this remain unanswered for more than two months now. There has not been any response from the Supreme Court to my rejoinder to COA’s report either till date. While following status of case CA

4235/2014 on Supreme Court website on 22/02/2019, it was only by chance that my name among list of counsels caught my attention and then I came to know that sometime back my IA had been tagged with this case with no information to me.

B.   The Meaning Thereof

Above are the bare facts. Now we must examine what these facts mean and what questions arise. We must do so objectively, with an open mind, without prejudices and mental blocks, and in the larger perspective. We must keep in mind that Supreme Court of India is (or supposed to be) a man-made institution created to sub-serve nothing and no one but Justice and Truth (||यतो धर्मस्ततो जयः||).

I have tried to be as brief as possible while bringing out the above facts. But some detailing would be necessary now so that everything is correctly understood in the larger perspective, especially since what comes out is beyond one’s wildest imagination and normal human comprehension.

As the intelligent minds of the addressees would have already discerned, is it not a clear case of even the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India at times failing to take cognizance of its own orders? Can there be anything more bizarre? Why did it happen so? What does one do in such a situation? Another thing that is very loud and clear is cheating by the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators for BCCI with the petitioners. Why did such a high powered committee have to stoop so low? They acted with utmost irresponsibility, if not like third rate goons, in giving the report as they did. In essence, the report by the Committee of Administrators (COA) and as things stand amount to a total joke of judicial process in India. How and why so?

It was after repeated requests by me that the COA agreed to have a meeting with me, subsequent to the Court’s order dated 7/5/2019. I meant the meeting to serve the purpose of a meaningful interaction and exchange of ideas. I had hoped that the COA would take the right call keeping in mind the gravity of what the subject writ petition had brought out. COA were well aware that the contents of the petition remained totally unchallenged in the Court, BCCI themselves having been one of the respondents. Above anything else, the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court dated 07/05/2018 clearly implied that the contents had withstood the scrutiny of the Hon’ble Court. If it were not so, the Hon’ble Court couldn’t and wouldn’t have given the petitioners the liberty to assist (for all purposes it amounted to an invitation to assist) the Court in the main case concerning BCCI.

As per the Hon’ble Court’s order, was not COA to take decision for the action to be taken in the face of what had been brought out in the petition rather than passing their dictatorial farcical judgement on it?  It is a matter of record that in their interaction with me leading to the meeting and during the meeting with us, they repeatedly indicated such an intention (to take necessary action) all along. They are on record having repeatedly stated that very important issues had been brought out/raised in the petition. But in the report they submitted, they went back on their words and took a U-turn, the report being a futile bureaucratic exercise and totally irrelevant to the contents of the petition. If the contents of the petition were unsubstantiated as unilaterally concluded by COA in their report, what for did they hold meeting with us? Do you give value to someone who makes unfounded bogus allegations? Do you ask for suggestions from such wasters? Why so much contradiction between their statements and actions leading to the meeting and their report afterwards? The million dollar questions remain: having Mr Vinod Rai, Head of COA assured us that they would request Supreme Court to get ‘Cricket Insider’ investigated, what made them forget all about it afterwards? What happened to investigation of IPL – 10 final as they had assured and promised us in the meeting?

Then could COA be at liberty to term the contents of the petition as unsubstantiated behind the back of the petitioners, that too having kept quiet in the Court when facing the petitioners, making a mockery of the Hon’ble Supreme Court itself who had invited the petitioners to assist in the main case concerning BCCI? And above all, not having been able to counter a single piece of evidence in the least when an encyclopaedia of it including scientific evidence existed before them? Did it not amount to an act of utmost cowardice and making mockery of natural justice, fair play, and normal human-behaviour? In doing what they did, COA have not only proved themselves that fraud was institutional as brought out in the petition but have also indicated their own complicity as well. Futilely they have tried to deny a fact as sure as that Earth revolved round the Sun or 2+2 equalled 4. That people remain largely unaware is another matter.

Has not COA’s report amounted to the thief himself passing a dictatorial judgment that no theft had taken place rather than constructively advising the Supreme Court as to what could be done in the face of what the stark reality was, as the Hon’ble Court must have implied through its order dated 7/5/2018?

While seeing the obvious acts of commission and omission by the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators, let us not overlook what has happened in the Supreme Court itself with regard to the subject petition. While entertaining/ implicitly admitting the writ petition 1163/2017 vide its order dated 2/2/2018, the Hon’ble Court had desired counsel for the UOI to assist in the case. What happened to that thereafter? There was no assistance whatsoever from counsel for the UOI before the case was disposed of on 7/5/2018. The petitioners remained in the dark in that regard. So much so that UOI didn’t even say a word about its own acts of commission and omission as had been brought out in the petition, and was nowhere in picture when the Hon’ble Court passed the final order in the case on the 7^th May, 2018. And while the Hon’ble Court passed a seemingly meaningful and fair order clubbing the matter of WP (C) 1163/2017 with CA 4235/2014 for further consideration after COA’s report for all practical purposes giving liberty to the petitioners to assist the Hon’ble Court in that case, no such order existed for the Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court himself! The Supreme Court itself failed to take cognizance of its own orders for months; closing the door on the petitioners after having invited them to assist in the main case concerning BCCI – making the petitioners lose all the enthusiasm and momentum in a massive public cause. Has anyone been held responsible and hauled over the coals for this serous lapse/ act of commission and/or omission? And I was never informed when the door was surreptitiously opened months after the invitation. Then, matter was to be listed after two weeks as per the Hon’ble Court’s order dated 16/2/2018, but it is a matter of record that I had to fight tooth and nail to get it listed thereafter. Those defying Hon’ble Court’s orders are liable for Contempt proceedings, rightly so, but what when the officials in Hon’ble Supreme Court of India defy the Court’s own orders?

All above could only be routine bureaucratic muddle (though considering the issues involved it looked very unlikely that it had not been motivated and on purpose). Whatever be the reasons behind, as a result the momentous issues brought out through WP (C) 1163/2017 lie totally forgotten, if not dead and buried. The colossal public fraud through cricket, robbing the tens of millions of people not only in India alone but in the world, of thousands of billions of rupees per year (money – a substantial part of which goes to terror funding), through cricket betting, as a result of continuous institutionalized fixed and scripted cricket globally, continues not only unfettered and unbridled but prospering by each passing day. The biggest manifestation of this fraud – another version of IPL - IPL 2019 - has recently started on the 23^rd March, 2019 with great fan-fare even after none other than much reputed former Indian captain Bishen Singh Bedi publicly termed IPL as the biggest scam India had ever seen as per a news report dated 19/11/2018 ( https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/catch+news+new-epaper-catchne/ipl+is+the+biggest+scam+india+has+ever+seen+says+this+former+indian+captain-newsid-101848173?ss=pd&s=a ).

This is when the whole country of India, the authorities and public alike, is extremely concerned with terror and terror funding in the aftermath of Pulwama attack. Now through this IPL same country is daily celebrating big time contribution to same terror-funding. Would there be a bigger joke on earth? Such is the sheer power of the continuing colossal fraud through Cricket. Terror activities haven’t ceased after Pulwama nor are those going to cease. It is money that makes the mare go. The Indian authorities remain happy to keep eyes closed to a big source of  Terror funding – the backbone of all terrorist activities - while making so much noise all over the world against terrorism.

It could genuinely be argued that there is a benevolent face also of this colossal fraud. It is a fraud that has unprecedented binding and uniting power in times of all around fighting and in-fighting. It unites top political leaders across parties like Sharad Pawar, Arun Jaitely, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla etc as administrators of cricket over the years. It unites top industrialists like Mukesh/Nita Ambani, Bollywood superstars like Shahrukh Khan, media-houses like Sun Network etc as co-team-owners in IPL. It unites and bonds cricket players across teams and nations as one in a crime. So it does for cricket experts, commentators, administrators, and coaches. Fiercely competing media channels and their highly vocal editors and anchors; the eminent newspaper editors – they all mysteriously unite in keeping their mouths tightly shut and pens down when it comes to this all-pervading colossal fraud. Not only does media keep mouth shut unitedly, it also continues to fill its coffers through marketing of this criminal fraud. It binds all above and more across professions and stature. And it unites them all combined with the world’s underworld. It unites cricketers and cricket boards across third world and first world countries in continually perpetuating the international fraud. And if so much unity were not sufficient, it unites even the enemy and warring nations like India and Pakistan in continuously playing fixed cricket matches between them.

Apart from this, the scripted and fixed matches also keep the masses entertained and enthralled through periodic last over and last ball finishes. The dramatized cricket keeps masses in countries like India under its opium like effect and helps them keep forgetting their travails and day-to-day exploitation by the Haves of the world, and non-governance or misgovernance by government after government. They remain mesmerized under aura of purposefully created fictitious Indian demi-gods like Tendulkar, Dhoni and Kohli.

But this benevolent face that a common educated Indian sees or can see to feel happy about continuance of this colossal public fraud is only the by-product. The main product, that still remains hidden from public at large, is frighteningly malevolent.

That main real product, the purpose of it all, is to addict the masses in cricket-betting and then loot them through ball by ball scripted and fixed cricket. That is akin to infamous Saradha Scam of West Bengal in effect – this one being pan India and beyond, at much larger scale and thousands times magnified – the scam still continuing and kicking. And a substantial part of these mind boggling sums of lakhs of crores of rupees per year finds its way to terror-funding. Hundreds and thousands of lives continue getting ruined through people getting bankrupt from betting on matches designed to render them so. Other telling implications of this malevolent product that readily come to mind are:

1.    A continuing open public fraud, especially one as mammoth as the scripted cricket, is bound to degrade the society, especially the conscience of the young generation hooked on to it, in a very big way, with or without society realizing so.

2.    National anthems are routinely abused, when teams swear by national anthem to play competitively for the honour and prestige of the country but in reality play only scripted cricket, match after match.

3.    All Law-enforcing agencies in India are totally defunct; one can depend only on self-guard or God’s mercy for help against public frauds and crimes.

4.    Everything being and having been said about cricket ~ performance of players, cricket statistics, player or team standings, team selections, speculation on winning or losing of teams etc. ~ has been nothing but bunkum, nonsense, and gibberish.

5.    Through its reporting on fixed cricket matches as a competitive sport, media has been acting criminally while subjecting the masses to a mammoth fraud round the clock.

6.    Thousands of those indulging in and facilitating this fraud are thus criminals with no fear of any authority or law, hundreds out of those being our top celebrities and super heroes from various walks of life, many of those being recipient of our top public awards. That makes us an absurd entity.

To my mind, and I hope no one will disagree, for humanity the implications of this fraud continuing with gay abandon, even years after it was brought to knowledge of the authorities, the members of parliament and the government in India, after it was exposed repeatedly in public for years and brought to knowledge of press and media, and even a year after all above was well apprised to the Hon’ble Sureme Court of India with irrefutable evidence and necessary documents through a laborious writ petition (WP(C) 1163/2017); are far more serious than this massive, mammoth, and colossal public fraud itself. That means:

1.   There is no institution in India that can guard its Constitution or its billion plus people from being exploited by a few (hundreds/thousands) mighty fraudsters/criminals.

2.    There is no credibility whatsoever even of highly renowned journalists, and eminent editors across the nation since they all have chosen to keep quiet on and keep ignoring this colossal public fraud.

3.   Only money and power matter, nothing else matters.

4.    Mahatma Gandhis, Vivekanandas, and Baba Bhimrao Ambedkars have no relevance whatsoever in today’s world except for being a topic of hollow and time-passing discussions.

5.    There is no credibility whatsoever of institution of Parliament of India as well as the present Union Government under PM Modi.

6.   PM Modi has been cheating India and Indian public by repeatedly proclaiming outside and inside Parliament that he and his government had zero tolerance against corruption. If not a cheat, he certainly doesn’t know meaning of zero, or of tolerance, or of corruption.

7.    The Holy Scriptures like Rama, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Vedas are all totally irrelevant since they all propagated Truth, we collectively having chosen to shun it.

8.    All literature, art, and human evolution become meaningless since we have decided that Falsehood should reign supreme. Literature or Art or even human existence itself has any meaning only if mankind strives to pursue Truth.

       And so on.        

Here it should be clear that the fact of cricket being an institutionalized fraud lies well established, beyond any doubts and questions now, with the arguments and evidence given in the petition, in my rejoinder to the COA’s report, and otherwise available in public domain. Above everything else, one has only to open one’s eyes, literally and figuratively, when watching telecast of cricket matches – to see that it was no competitive cricket but drama being unfolded match after match. Only the last match before my penning these lines, the first T – 20 match between South Africa and Sri Lanka on 19/3/2019 that ended in a tie was another such match. That it was scripted to result in a tie out of blue became too conspicuous; and then Sri Lanka choosing not to compete in the super-over was an anti-climax to the thrilling drama a few minutes ago – the betting syndicates filling up their coffers in the bargain at the cost of the fooled bettors.

Going through the tweets of @theDcricket for last more than a year and half and applying mind to that alone should suffice for anyone to understand that there could be no explanation for these tweets other than that cricket was nothing but an institutionalized fraud. I don’t hesitate in saying that these tweets have rendered all my painstaking efforts over the years in exposing the colossal continuous fraud through scripted cricket all around the world redundant. His many tweets have repeatedly made it abundantly clear that cricket matches were scripted with scripts known to him beforehand. Pre-scripting of any match necessarily means active involvement in the fraud of all the players and coaches in both the teams, and many others related with conducting of the match. While on the very face of it, it looks preposterous and impossible, there is no way or no possibility that it could be any other way. Yes, @theDcricket does make wrong predictions once a while. He has to; otherwise shops of betting syndicates would get shut. He has to be one belonging to the gang to have knowledge beforehand of the scripts of the matches to unfold. The whole aspect of his tweets has been detailed and explained in our writ petition. Here it should suffice to say that we must understand that one can give wrong answers on purpose while very well knowing the right answers; but one cannot give right answers repeatedly if one didn’t know the right answers. Many of his prophetic tweets have been such that those could not be dismissed as flukes.

While the tweets by @theDcricket are an open, sufficient, easier to comprehend, and readily available proof of institutionalized fixing of cricket globally (it is another matter that COA of BCCI, ICC, the cricket world, Indian Police, Union of India, and all other authorities in India are happy to feign blind to these), the scientific proof worked out by me has its own value simply because it is scientific and therefore eternal. And though the world has chosen to ignore it so far, it is no mean achievement. I do understand that it was something new, unprecedented, beyond what we have been trained or taught to consider as evidence or proof. But can and should humanity refuse to evolve, refusing to heed to and apply mind to any novel ideas that appeal to common-sense? Gravitational Force and Archimedes’ principles were also once unknown to man.

Through simple application of basic principles of probability to score books we can know for sure that our super-hero cricketers have only been stage performers, and that cricket has not been a competitive sport at least for last few decades but has only been a staged drama performed with very serious and grave ulterior motives. No one needed to be grilled and agencies didn’t have to investigate for years with or without success for knowing this truth. All scope for vested interests to create all possible bureaucratic and legal muddle vanished. And today, the scientific proof also lies repeatedly corroborated by ex-cricketers, bookies in custody, stings, and other exposes coming to light now and then. Closing eyes in the sun didn’t mean that it was dark. As mentioned in my rejoinder to COA, while all other people may take U-turns or proofs may vanish, this scientific proof will always be there to enlighten one.

I do feel happy that the mathematical/scientific proof that occurred to me has withstood the biggest Test – the Test of Time, no one from the cricket world or cricket establishment, ICC included, ever challenging it even though its existence was sufficiently reported in media and brought to the cricket authorities’ notice directly by me repeatedly. It was not countered even in Supreme Court of India, or in the report of the COA – with the whole world including top mathematicians and advocates available at the disposal of the powerful respondents. They had no legal luminary to beat, but only a commoner - the petitioner-in-person - armed with nothing but common-sense and Truth.

Whatever might have been the game-plan of the respondents in dealing with the subject petition; time to counter the contents of the petition for the concerned parties or the Hon’ble Court itself was there and then in the presence of the petitioners, before the Hon’ble Court passed order in the petition. No one has any right thereafter to counter or challenge the contents of the petition (WP (C) 1163/2017), not even Supreme Court of India. It can’t be an unending process. I may not be conversant with legal nuances, but this is what I am entitled to believe as a man of common prudence and as a petitioner. Though we often tend to forget, everything is function of Time. It is only incidental that I am still alive and writing this letter. The blot on the world for its failure to wake up to the massive public fraud through cricket and act to arrest it years ago when it was first exposed is not washable. And anyone even now having doubts about veracity of the contents of the petition has to be an incurable blockhead.

The cricket legend M S Dhoni was very recently reported having said, “The biggest crime that I can commit is not murder, it is actually match-fixing.” In light of this, one should try to visualize and understand how big a crime the institutionalized fixing of matches involving hundreds of Dhonis day and night is from the perspective of the public. For Dhoni and players like him, the fixing must be meaning fixing outside institutionalized fixing i.e. acting to play outside the script given/dictated by the team management/ coaches to them.  

Now let us briefly see the larger overall picture on the canvas of India today.

24 x 7, day after day, month after month, and year after year, through media or social media all our surplus energies are spent in discussing as to who is bigger rogue or rascal? A, or B, or C? Or which political party is greater rogue? X, or Y, or Z? We fail to discuss our collective systemic problems, ills, and evils, and discuss for solutions for our collective good. All the time we are indulging only in blame game. Led by our media, the public discourse has been reaching lower levels each passing day. We continue to be divided by religion, caste, and states. Reservation – leading to divisive politics - remains our main issue rather than personal development and advancement. The gap between the Haves and Have-nots has been widening all the time. Even though the Constitution desired us to be a Socialist State, wealth is more and more accumulating in the hands of a few. Corruption, and big time corruption at that, is order of the day - a rule, rather than an exception. As a routine, bigwigs charged of corruption and misdoings continue to enjoy five-star life style for years, hardly ever coming to any harm except for a few exceptions here or there. Crony-Capitalism rules. Slavery is deep-rooted in our DNA as evident from the fact of single family continuing to rule us or remaining to be the top contender to rule us since independence. Judicial systems are overdue for overhaul and revamp. Public is constantly at the receiving end for medical support or for civic amenities. There is hardly any ray of hope for the unemployed youth, the poor, and masses at large for improvement of their lot.

We just keep changing ruling dispensations through our votes to govern/mis-govern us and feel happy about it. The backbone of governance, bureaucracy and bureaucratic systems remain same, continuing to rot at large, as exemplified by Supreme Court’s Registrar’s office, as illustrated in this letter (not to go far). Despite my successful crusade years ago against systemic corruption in procurement in Indian Railways causing leakage of taxpayer’s money worth Rs 5000 crore and more per year, the leakage continues even today increased a few times. No one is bothered either in bureaucracy or outside it. That too when this leakage was later on confirmed by the Metro Man E. Sreedharan and a detailed report suggesting solutions was submitted to the Railway Board before I took voluntary retirement 7 years ago. Our daily narrative set by self-serving employees of native or foreign corporates owning the media is often sponsored, bogus, petty, divisive, self-abusive, and self-defeating. Self-seeking and self-service are the virtues most sought after by man today.

Public scams and frauds worth hundreds or thousands of crores of rupees are reported with regular periodicity, many more remaining unreported. The agencies meant to control those are either themselves mired in corruption or otherwise inadequate. The present state of CBI and those having been at the helm of its affairs for past few years themselves having been charged / under suspicion is a burning example.

Therefore, in the present scenario, nothing but renaissance has become a necessity. (All this doesn’t mean that nothing good is left in the world). In the absence of that, the rut is bound to continue and multiply.

It was for this reason that I have pursued the cricket fraud for years, with single track mind, at great personal risk and cost, often ridiculed by family and friends, my efforts culminating with the filing of the subject writ petition in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. Against all odds, I continued to be driven by my sense of proportion. If people came to know of this fraud and understood its implications and involvement of big political leaders across parties, top industrialists and celebrities etc., that in all probability would have been the starting point for the renaissance. People would have known for sure that all or almost all those with might were one in fooling the masses and that media and those flaunting moral authority were most immoral. As we have seen above, the fraud and its continuance have relevance and implications on a very wide horizon, much beyond game of cricket. But alas! Those who control the world have been successful in ensuring that people remained ignorant and the word ‘renaissance’ never occurred to them.

This leads to a very relevant and big question: When the fact of cricket being thoroughly scripted and being an institutionalized fraud lies so exposed and unchallenged, how and why is it that masses still remain largely ignorant of the truth? For most of cricket lovers fixing takes place as an aberration only at times, involving only a few players at the behest of some bookies from outside. It is so because masses come to know of things only through media and this is what media has kept telling the world to keep it fooled. Like thick skinned rogues, the cricket journalists and cricket experts keep analysing and discussing cricket for the masses as if competitive cricket was taking place all the time. Pages of newspapers and hours of air time on various sports and news channels are devoted daily to such analysis and discussions. The cases of much lesser importance in Supreme Court are reported widely in media. But there was hardly any coverage in media even after such a momentous petition as WP (C) 1163/2017 on cricket being an institutionalized fraud was entertained by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India except for one or two news items here or there. And after that those controlling media ensured that there was total black out on any coverage related to this petition in the media. So much so that even the meaningful final order by the Hon’ble Court in the petition found no mention anywhere in media (to the best of my knowledge). That was so when media otherwise talks so much about cricket - fall of a wicket in an on-going match becoming news Headline on TV channels. The vocal news channel editors including Nevika Kumar, Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami, Ravish Kumar, Rahul Kanwal, Bhupendra Coubey etc. can be frequently seen making mountains out of mole-hills and then forgetting everything at their convenience. When confronted with a real mountain, they all chose to become total blind. Media ensured that public largely remained ignorant of the petition, of any talk on fact of cricket being an institutionalized fraud for years, some coverage here or there in some obscure columns notwithstanding, thus by itself proving its complicity in the continuance of cricket as a colossal public fraud. Even the explosive recent public assertion by Mr Bishen Singh Bedi that IPL was the biggest ever scam India had seen didn’t find much mention in our press and media at large that contrarily continues to market IPL to the hilt. The explosive expose by Aljazeera also had more or less similar fate. The inherent absurdity of media as an institution is best exemplified by the Statesman, only independent major newspaper in India with the best credibility today. Its sports editor, Mr Pulakesh Mukhopadhyay has been exposing thorough corruption in cricket including it being scripted and being a farce, and the complicity of media at large in that, silently with perseverance for years, probably since earlier than my books, through his weekly column ‘Short Point’. And yet the Statesman also like other press continues to report daily with prominent headlines on cricket matches across the world as if competitive matches were being played all along.

And this established complicity of Indian media beyond any doubt in one of the biggest on-going public frauds on earth raises a very big question and concern for the man-kind. How to protect the masses from media controlled misinformation and frauds? What is media today? All or almost all media is controlled by self-serving big or small corporates or the government. There is nothing like independent press or media. As a result, a person like me who needed only half an hour or so to interact with the public to make it understand how cricket was institutionally fixed - to arm the people against the fraud - has no platform to do so. It may not be wrong to say that in today’s world media is the multi-headed monster. Solutions will have to be found to control this monster, if mankind has to survive the onslaught of total Falsehood.

What could be possible solutions? A solution that comes to mind is that let there be a multilingual TV channel under control of office of Lokpal or so where any responsible citizen from society can tell and convey to the world what he wants to on first-cum-first-serve basis on payment of pre-decided fees as per some chart depending on the duration asked for. Simple rules could be framed to ensure that such a facility was not misused, nor any genuine request was turned down. The people will thus have prior knowledge where to look for insights from public. Such a channel could also show commercials to earn necessary revenue. By and by such a provision would be widely used by the millions of well-meaning Indians, especially the educated youth, to tell and to know. Simply the existence of such a provision would go a long way to keep the monster media under check. It is just an idea that occurred to me. Better minds may find better solutions. What was necessary was awareness and acceptance of the problem and a will to find workable practical solutions.

C.   Summing Up

To sum up, the bottom-line is that a colossal public fraud – a very potent source of terror funding globally - lies publicly exposed and established beyond any doubt for past few years, and yet it continues to prosper unfettered and unbridled even after Hon’ble Supreme Court of India having been fully apprised about it through the subject writ petition, and thus being fully aware of it for over a year.

Turning of a total blind eye to this fraud and crime by the present government under PM Modi tells one how bogus and laughable are propaganda of nationalism and ‘main bhi chowkidaar’ by PM Modi and his government.

The possible solutions to arrest this fraud have been suggested in my I.A. 81233/18 in case CA 4235/2014. The easily implementable and the best one to my mind is to make it mandatory for the authorities to issue a simple statutory warning during any telecast of or reporting on cricket matches: ‘the cricket matches could be totally fixed and scripted’ . I had suggested this in one of my Press Releases also during one of the Press Conferences years ago. Though a very practical and effective solution, to implement it will require a very strong will and decision making.

Still there will be bettors like there are smokers and drinkers, but they would remain sufficiently warned and cricket will cease to be a fraud even if it was fixed. The volumes of cricket-betting across the world are likely to reduce drastically. The continuing terror-funding by betting syndicates etc., if any, will have to be dealt with separately by the law-enforcing agencies of the world. This is not an ideal solution, but probably the only possible one considering how deep rooted and vast the fraud is and considering who all are involved in it. Again, better minds can think of better solutions.

In light of all that has been brought out in this letter, the Hon’ble judges will have to put their minds together and think hard as to what has gone wrong with the Constitution of India that it is possible for a mammoth, massive, colossal public fraud and crime to continue totally unfettered even after lying publicly exposed for years, with no one in authority bothering the least. That too when the fraud is so big and all-pervading that it threatens the very security of the country and its people, and when attention of the authorities, Supreme Court appointed high-power Commissions, Supreme Court itself, and media had been drawn to it repeatedly during all those years.

Through this letter, probably as a last resort, I appeal to the collective wisdom of the sitting judges of the august institution of Supreme Court of India to come to the rescue of the ignorant people of this country when all the offices including that of President of India, and Prime Minister of India have miserably failed.

I do hope that the world will act on this open letter and won’t leave it for aliens, whenever they descend on earth, to find it and know how degraded and foolish the mankind was in the early 21^st century.

  Thank you.

(Atul Kumar)