One complaint from a loyal cricket fan, Surinder Singh Barmi from Delhi has been the bane of BCCI after the watchdog Competition Commission of India has taken up the investigation and found that leading cricketing board had lobbied and abused its power to have the monopoly in the market over its rival Indian Cricket League (ICL).

It was proven that the Board of Control for Cricket in India spent several million dollars while trying to suppress the ICL in the Indian Premier League deals under the leadership of Lalit Modi. To be specific in figures, during the period of 2007 to 2011 BCCI has made all efforts while spending crores to wipe out ICL for which it was ordered to pay a penalty of Rs 52.54 crores, 6% of the average annual revenue of BCCI for the past three years.

The BCCI were given a period of 90 days from the time of receipt of the order to make the transfer of the penalty.

In the investigation the irregularities while granting rights for IPL ownership, media and sponsorship rights have all been exposed. The CCI also ordered the BCCI to refrain from such practices in the future when it observed, "cease and desist from any practice in future denying market access to potential competitors, including inclusion of similar clauses in any agreement in future".

CCI stated "Virtually, there is no other competitor in the market nor was anyone allowed to emerge due to BCCI's strategy of monopolizing the entire market. The abuse was of a grave nature and the quantum of penalty that needs to be levied should be commensurate with the gravity of the violation."

(AW- Anil)