Organizers including different cricket associations had challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court, but have lost their case today.
Highlights
- Cricket organisations had argued pitches were prepped with sewage water
- They also offered to donate 60 lakh litres water as compensation
- Maharashtra is dealing with the worst drought in several decades
Except for a match in Pune on May 1, Maharashtra will be off-limits for the IPL in May, the Supreme Court said today, agreeing with an earlier verdict that said matches must be moved out of the state which is dealing with the worst drought in several decades.
Recently, the
Bombay High Court said that water could not be squandered on prepping cricket pitches for the domestic Twenty-20 tournament at a time when the three cities meant to host the games- Nagpur, Pune and Mumbai -are coping with severe water rationing.
Organizers including different cricket associations had challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court, but have lost their case today. They had argued that it was treated sewage water, not water that could be treated for drinking, that would be used to water the pitches. They had also offered to donate 60 lakh litres of treated sewage water to drought-hit areas as compensation for the water that would be used on pitches.
"Why get into the controversy of giving treated sewage water to the stadiums, how will you segregate the water? There will be lakhs of spectators who will also come, what about water for them?" said the top court's judges today.
The organizers were considering moving some of the 12 matches to Rajasthan, but a petition in a court there has also challenged that move, contending that given the scarcity of water in the desert state, cities like Jaipur should also be declared no-go zones for the massively popular cricket tournament. The Rajasthan High Court today said that it will deliver its decision on May 3.