SPL begins as Rajkot court rejects plea to estrain SCA from organising tourney
The court of judge Bharat Jadav of the Commercial Court in Rajkot rejected a plea by M/S DG Nakrani, which used to hold franchisee of SPL team Gohilwad Gladiators, Wednesday and cleared the deck for the T20 league.
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With the court rejecting Nakrani's plea, SPL season-III started as per schedule with Halar Heros taking on the Gohilwad Gladiators in the season opener at 7 PM at SCA Cricket Stadium in Khandri village on the outskirts of Rajkot. Hours before the start of the opening match of the third season of Saurashtra Premier League (SPL), a local court in Rajkot Wednesday rejected a plea seeking to restrain the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) from organising the tournament.
The court of judge Bharat Jadav of the Commercial Court in Rajkot rejected a plea by M/S DG Nakrani, which used to hold franchisee of SPL team Gohilwad Gladiators, Wednesday and cleared the deck for the T20 league. In its application, Nakrani had stated that since the applicant had moved the High Court seeking appointment of an arbiter for resolving a dispute with SCA, if SPL season-III is allowed to happen, the applicant will suffer huge financial losses. Hence, SCA, which is one of the members of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), should be restrained from organising SPL season-III.
“However, the court agreed with the submission that SCA had already terminated M/S DG Nakrani as franchise holder of SPL team Gohilwad Gladiators and therefore, the applicant can’t seek enforcement of Section 9 of the franchise agreement that provided for an arbiter for resolving the dispute. SCA had terminated M/S DG Nakrani as a franchise holder after giving the latter enough opportunities to comply with the agreement but to no avail. We submitted that the applicant had suppressed material facts and had not come to the court with clean hands and that its only intention was to hinder SCA from organising the tournament without any locus,” Tushar Gokani, advocate of SCA told The Indian Express.
With the court rejecting Nakrani’s plea, SPL season-III started as per schedule with Halar Heros taking on the Gohilwad Gladiators in the season opener at 7 PM at SCA Cricket Stadium in Khandri village on the outskirts of Rajkot. The league that features five teams, was originally scheduled to start from June 15. However, SCA deferred it due to Cyclone Biparjoy that hit the Kutch and Saurashtra coast that day. The tournament was rescheduled between August 23 and August 31.
SCA had awarded franchise rights of Gohilwad Gladiators to Nakrani in 2019. However, it terminated the franchise agreement with Nakrani on April 21 after the latter failed to pay franchise fees.
“The SCA decision to terminate franchise rights of M/s DG Nakrani will neither affect Gohilwad Gladiators team nor SPL as SCA has taken over control of the team,” Gokani said.
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