The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to grant an urgent hearing for a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition which sought postponement of Indian Premier League 2020 amid the coronavirus panic.
A vacation bench comprising justices UU Lalit and Aniruddha Bose told the petitioner that he could mention the matter for urgent hearing before the regular bench on March 16 when the apex court will re-open after a week-long Holi break.
The court said, “This is not a matter which cannot wait till re-opening of the court. You can mention it before the regular court on March 16.”
The petition filed by advocate Mohan Babu Agarwal contended that IPL 2020 is scheduled to start from 29 March but no safety measures have been declared to prevent the spread of coronavirus during the matches, which are likely to witness over 30,000 spectators at the stadiums for each IPL match.
Last week, the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup was postponed due to the growing concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. The world cup which was to be held in New Delhi from March 15.
Globally, there have been more than 100,000 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus. At least 3,500 people have died so far — majority of them in the People’s Republic of China. The number of cases have also steadily increased in Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea.