Supreme Court to Decide if Hyderabad Cricket Association Officers Are ‘Public Servants’ Under Anti-Corruption Law
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether officials of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) can be treated as ‘public servants’ under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PC Act).
A Bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B Varale is hearing petitions filed by HCA officials against the Telangana High Court’s order refusing to quash FIRs lodged against them. These cases involve allegations of corruption, conspiracy, and misuse of funds in connection with HCA activities—especially the construction of the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had filed a chargesheet pointing to serious irregularities. These include inflating stadium construction costs from ₹31 crore to ₹108 crore, overpaying for bucket chairs at ₹910 each when the market price was around ₹450 (causing a loss of ₹2.07 crore), irregularities in ticket sales which led to a ₹44 lakh sales tax penalty, and awarding contracts for grounds and floodlights without proper tendering.
The accused officers argued that the PC Act does not cover them since HCA is not a “State” under Article 12 of the Constitution, does not receive direct government funding, and therefore its members are not ‘public servants’.
The High Court, however, disagreed. It noted that HCA had received government assistance in the past, including a highly subsidised land lease (23.27 guntas for just ₹1,00,000 annually for 25 years) for building the stadium. Referring to earlier Supreme Court rulings in Zee Telefilms Ltd. v. Union of India (2005) and BCCI v. Cricket Association of Bihar (2015), the Court observed that cricket bodies perform public functions similar to state authorities. On this basis, it held that HCA officials could prima facie be treated as ‘public servants’ under the PC Act.
Challenging this finding, the HCA officers have now approached the Supreme Court, which has agreed to examine the legal issue. The matter will be taken up in November 2025 on a non-miscellaneous day.
Cause Title: Nandlal Shivlal Yadav & Ors. v. State of Telangana & Anr.
