A petition filed with the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) asks the governing body to make public what documents were submitted and what checks were carried out when Swatantra Pratap Shah was recognized as the owner of the Nepal Premier League franchise Sudurpaschim Royals. The petition was registered at CAN as number 04 on 2083/06/12 in the Bikram Sambat calendar, according to the source report. The petitioners describe themselves as Nepali cricket supporters and well-wishers, and Siddhartha Thapa is named among them.

The petition does not accuse Shah of wrongdoing. Its stated purpose, as reported, is to make sure the franchise ownership process is transparent and follows the criteria CAN itself set.

The petitioners are seeking official-record-based information on the following, as submitted by Shah under CAN's Request for Proposal (RFP) for franchise selection:

The petition also asks whether CAN carried out proper due diligence, meaning detailed background checks and document verification. It notes that Shah lives in Australia and asks how CAN verified documents during the franchise ownership transfer.

Where the questions come from

The petition draws on the official Sudurpaschim Royals website. According to the source report, the site presents Shah as the team's owner and says he obtained the franchise through Empire Sports Management Pvt. Ltd., a company based in Brisbane, Australia.

The supplied material contains no response from CAN, the NPL organizers, Sudurpaschim Royals, or Shah. It is not known whether CAN has accepted the petition for review, set a timeline for replying, or begun any verification. The allegations in the petition are requests for information and have not been tested against CAN's records. CAN, the franchise, and Shah can each be expected to comment, and this article should be updated if they do.

For now, the next development to watch is whether CAN responds to the petition or publishes any details of its franchise verification process.