The Bombay High Court has ruled that the first match of the IPL 2016 edition will be played in Wankhede stadium, Mumbai on April 9.
However, the court didn’t give any verdict on whether the other 18 matches scheduled to be played in Maharashtra be shifted out of the state or not, says this DNA report.
The first match will be played between Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Super Giants.
The court has asked state govt to give a statement by next Tuesday on whether water supplied to stadiums is potable or non potable. It has also asked the state to investigate how BCCI gets rest of the water from if they get only 22k litre potable water from govt, the report adds.
During the hearing of multiple petitions filed by Marathi daily Loksatta and former journalist Ketan Tirodkar, Justice VM Kanade questioned how the game could be a priority when people were dying from lack of water.
Justice Kanade also directed acting Attorney general to ensure that water is provided to all.
An affidavit was submitted by the Maharashtra Cricket Association on the water used during IPL matches, but advocate Arshil Shah, who was representing the newspaper argued that no source of the water was mentioned in the document, ANI reported.
Responding to advocate shah, MCA’s lawyer clarified that the water was used for maintenance of the pitches including watering the ground and for sanitation purposes.
He also questioned the timing of PIL filed,” Why they were filed days before the tournament was set to begin, when the schedule was announced in advance?”
The court asked,”Are cricket matches more important than people,” on Wednesday to the state government, Mumbai Cricket Association and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
On Wednesday, the court had sought responses from all respondents, including the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Vidarbha Cricket Association, Maharashtra government, and the civic bodies of Mumbai and Nagpur. Meanwhile, in his petition, Tirodkar sought an undertaking from State government that it would supply 1,000 litres of water per day to each family of drought-hit districts till monsoon arrives.
(With PTI and ANI inputs)
(Feature image source: AFP)