Top India officials face perjury charges

Senior Indian cricket officials, including former chief Sharad Pawar, were consulting lawyers Thursday after a court ordered criminal proceedings against them on perjury charges.

The Calcutta High Court ruled that six officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should face charges linked to a case against ex-president Jagmohan Dalmiya.

The officials are alleged to have given false evidence against Dalmiya, a former head of the International Cricket Council (ICC), who was expelled from the BCCI in 2006 accused of financial irregularities.

Besides Pawar, who is due to take over as ICC president in 2010, the other accused men are BCCI chief Shashank Manohar, former and present secretaries Niranjan Shah and N. Srinivasan, vice-president Chirayu Amin and BCCI's chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty.

"We have heard about the development," Shah told reporters. "The BCCI lawyers will handle the issue. I can't comment further."

The BCCI had argued in the Calcutta High Court that Dalmiya was expelled under new rules framed by it and that those rules were properly registered.

Dalmiya, however, filed another case against the BCCI that the rules had not been registered as claimed, and therefore his expulsion was invalid.

The court ruled on Wednesday that the six officials had submitted a false affidavit, which amounted to committing perjury.

Dalmiya, who ruled the BCCI for more than a decade before being defeated by the Pawar faction in 2005, said the court's decision had vindicated his stand.

"I am happy that my stand is vindicated and I have got faith in the system as truth always comes out," Dalmiya told reporters in Calcutta.

"I thought the expulsion was too much and I did not deserve it. Therefore, I filed a case saying that my expulsion is absolutely uncalled for and it should be stopped."

The BCCI, one of the richest cricket bodies in the world, generated income of 205 million dollars in 2007-08.