India’s Lower House has cleared the passage for the ‘National Sports Ethics Commission Bill’ to be reviewed by the Delhi ‘Sansad’ Parliament.
The sports bill has been developed by former India BCCI cricket Chairman and BJP (India Peoples Party) MP Anurag Thakur, who first tabled the bill in 2016, seeking a stronger ethical code for Indian professional sports.
Thakur and the bill’s supporters want to introduce new sports regulatory provisions to primarily counter match-fixing, corruption and criminal activity related to Indian sports.
Furthermore, the Sports Ethic bill wants to introduce a stronger framework for all Indian sports stakeholders to work with in regards to further harmful dynamics such as doping, age fraud and sexual harassment.
The Bill, as states as its objective, to “provide for the constitution a National Sports Ethics Commission to ensure ethical practices and fair play in professional sports.”
Since 2013, a year in-which Indian sports was rocked by match-fixing scandals’ related to its IPL cricket league, Thakur and sports governing bodies have argued for a wholesale redraft of national sporting laws with regards to tackling sports corruption.
During the IPL match-fixing trials, Indian high court judges had complained that its legal courts lacked provisions in sports ethics to convict suspects accused of sports corruption practices.
As former BCCI chief, Thakur seeks to impose a minimum 10-year imprisonment sentence or ‘five-times the amount of bribe’ fine against offenders of match-fixing.
Gaining the Lower House’s approval, Thakur now seeks bipartisan support for ‘National Sports Ethics Commission Bill’ provisions, stating that the bill is critical to India’s sporting future.
