* Employers offer Das executive post

Young Orissa opener Shiv Sundar Das has not only impressed cricket fans in the country but also his employers National Aluminium Company which has offered him promotion to the executive rank. Das, who bagged the man of the match award for his knocks of 30 and 82 not out in the first Test at Bulawayo, has enhanced his job prospects over the last few days with the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) also offering him an executive position.

"A decision to promote him to an executive position will be taken in two to three days. We can tell the exact post only after that," a NALCO spokesman said in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday. Das is currently working as a supervisor, a non-executive post, in the central sector NALCO which has also given employment to another Orissa cricketer Debasish Mohanty. Medium pacer Mohanty, the first Orissa cricketer to break into the national scene, is currently working as a junior manager, a post which falls in the executive category.

The Union Minister of State for Steel, Braja Kishore Tripathy, had earlier offered to accommodate Das in an executive position in SAIL. A press release issued from the Minister's office quoted Tripathy as saying that Das had risen to represent the country from a state which did not have much of a sporting infrastructure through his talent and perseverance. He has become a source of inspiration for the youth of Orissa, it said.

* Appeal of Gayatri Arts disposed of, BCCI to file affidavit

The Mumbai High Court on Wednesday directed the Board of Control for Cricket in India to file an affidavit by June 18 in reply to a petition challenging the award of contract to International Management Group (IMG)-Transworld International (TWI) for clothing sponsorship in international matches for the next three years from July 1.

Refusing to stay the contract awarded to IMG and its subsidiary TWI, a bench comprising Justice BN Srikrishna and Justice Nishita Mhatre directed the appellant Sham Dhumatkar, proprietor of Gayatri Arts, to move a notice of motion before Justice DK Deshmukh, who had in an earlier order also refused to stay the award of contract by the BCCI. However, the division bench directed the single judge to dispose of the notice of motion before July 1 when the new contract would come into force.

Gayatri Arts had challenged the BCCI decision to award a contract to IMG-TWI by way of a petition in the High Court. The company claimed that it had made the highest bid of Rs 90 crores through a legal tender advertised by BCCI in a newspaper and yet the contract was awarded to IMG-TWI combine.

* Police seek to declare Prabhakar a `proclaimed offender'

The Uttaranchal police will file an application in a city court next week praying that former Test cricketer Manoj Prabhakar, accused of misappropriating public funds in a finance company and evading arrest be declared as a "proclaimed offender"

The Uttaranchal Director-General of police, Ashok Kant Sharan told PTI in Dehra Dun that efforts were made by the state police to arrest the accused on a non-bailable warrant issued by the Haldwani Court last month. He has since been evading arrest, Saran said adding Delhi and Rajasthan police had earlier failed to locate him.

The DGP said the application under section 82 of the CRPC will be filed in the Haldwani court seeking to declare Prabhakar as a proclaimed offender. According to the normal judicial procedure if the former cricketer is not arrested or he does not appear before the court within one month of his being declared as 'proclaimed offender', then the court has the power to declare him as 'absconder' under section 83 of CRPC and also to announce a cash reward for his arrest.

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