The Bombay High Court (HC) on Thursday directed the Maharashtra government to justify its decision to reduce and waive the arrears from the organisers of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches for police deployment and noted that it did not find any rationale behind the move.

A division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar said that while the government kept increasing the water tax charges on slum dwellers, it was waiving off the police cover fees from "cash-rich" organisers of cricket matches.

"What is this? What are you [government] doing? This is a fee not tax. You will keep on increasing the water tax from slum dwellers and then you waive off the fee for such cricket matches. The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) is the richest cricket association globally," the court said.

The bench was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Anil Galgali, in which he challenged the Maharashtra government`s decision to reduce the rate for police protection provided to IPL T-20 matches with a retrospective effect from 2011.

Galgali`s plea stated that in 2021, Mumbai Police had asked Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) to pay Rs 14.82 crore for providing cop protection for the games organised between 2013 and 2018 at the Wankhede and Brabourne stadiums. The petitioned further stated that the police were yet to recover the arrears from MCA. As per information obtained under the Right to Information Act, the police have sent 35 letters to MCA seeking payment of the dues, the petition added. Besides this, no serious effort has been taken by the police to recover the dues, it claimed. 

As per two Government Resolutions (GR) issued in 2017 and 2018, the organisers had to pay around Rs 66 to 75 lakh per T20 and One-Day match, respectively, and Rs 55 lakh for a Test match held in the Mumbai-based stadiums.