Harbhajan cleared of racial abuse

Harbhajan Singh has been cleared at an appeal hearing of racially abusing Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds.
The India spinner had been found guilty of calling Symonds, Australia's only mixed-race player, a "monkey" during the second Test in Sydney this month.

But at an appeal hearing on Tuesday, Harbhajan had his three-match ban lifted and was instead fined half his match fee for offensive behaviour.

The charge was downgraded to general abuse, governing body the ICC said.

"The racial abuse charges have been dropped," said Niranjan Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. "It is finished.

"The punishment is only for using obscene language."

I expected this. School children the lot of them and leaves a huge shadow over a series that should have been all about the best two teams in Test cricket. Australians.... offspring of convicts

The judge who ruled on this has come out and said Harbhajan Sing is extremely lucky with his punishment for his offence.
here's what the bbc said
The judge who cleared India's Harbhajan Singh of racial abusing Australia's Andrew Symonds says human error saved the player from a bigger punishment.
Harbhajan was fined for a lesser charge of verbal abuse but John Hansen said he could have imposed a different penalty had he been aware of his past record.

In 2001 Harbhajan was fined and banned for attempting to intimidate umpires.

Hansen revealed Harbhajan could have received a one-match ban had he known about the event, which occurred in a series against South Africa.
He said he had considered reopening the sentencing process when he was belatedly made aware of the matter, but could not.

"If I had been aware of the serious transgression in November 2001 I would have required more extensive submissions as to the offense in mitigation which could have led to a different penalty," said Hansen.

"Overnight I have given earnest consideration to the Code of Conduct to see if it empowers me to reopen the sentencing process. Regrettably I have concluded that I cannot do so and the penalty imposed by me must stand.

"At the end of the day Mr. Singh can feel himself fortunate that he has reaped the benefit of these database and human errors."
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rumour also has it that the decision to downgrade the charge from ra racist remark to swearing was to stop the Indians from boycotting the One Day tour