 29 January 2008
Harbhajan Singh has been cleared of the racial charge by Justice John Hansen today. Harbhajan was instead charged with a Level 2.8 offence - abuse and insult not amounting to racism - to which he pleaded guilty and was fined 50 per cent of his match fees.
Australaian captain Ricky Ponting had made the complaint to match refree Mike Proctor on the third day of the Sydnet teat match that Harbhajan Singh had racially abused Andrew Symonds by saying words "Big Monkey". After the match finished the match refree Mike Proctor found Harbhajan Singh guilty of racicm under ICC rule no. 3.3 and was banned for 3 test matches. This charge was denied by the Indian team and they refused to play any cricket on tour after that untill Harbhajan Singh was cleared of this charge. later Indian board BCCI also got involved and said that they will pull out of tour unless the racicm charge was lifted from Harbhajan Singh.
To resolve the issue ICC first sacked umpire Steve Bucknor from the remaining series and also asked the Indian to file appeal into the charge which was held after the end of Adelaide test match today.
During the hearing, oral evidence was called for from all the witnesses to the exchange between Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds - Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Matthew Hayden and Sachin Tendulkar. The witnesses were then cross-examined by Brian Ward, counsel representing the Australians, and VR Manohar, representing Harbhajan via video link from Mumbai.
"Justice Hansen said he was convinced that, on all the evidence submitted before him, the charge of a Level 3.3 offence was not proven but that Harbhajan should be charged with a Level 2.8 offence." Harbhajan pleaded guilty to this charge, after which the fine was imposed on him. Hansen is scheduled to provide the full reasons for delivering his judgement on Wednesday evening.
Manohar said that while the maximum punishment for a Level 2.8 offence was a fine of the full match fees and a ban of one Test or two ODIs, the fact that Harbhajan hadn't been booked under the ICC Code of Conduct since 1998 ensured that he got the milder penalty of a 50% fine of his match fees.
With the issue now resolved both the Australian and Indian Cricket Boards gave joint statement that they were happy from the outcome and are looking froward to good cricket in Commonwealth Bank Series also involving Sri Lanka. |
