CHENNAI: There was a ray of hope for BCCI and state body officials in Friday’s proceedings at Supreme Court. The court spoke of revising an earlier order, which said nine-year tenures were to include time spent in the offices of the board and state units.
The special bench of Justices Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud made an observation that nine years for an office-bearer in state associations or in the BCCI shall not be considered cumulatively, but reserved judgement.
Amid mild celebrations in BCCI ranks, petititoner Aditya Verma said the judges spoke about the matter without passing an order. He added this will become clear on January 24, when the court names the panel of administrators to run BCCI.
If the court does modify the previous order, officials who thought their career in administration was over for completing nine years in state bodies, can look forward to going to BCCI, depending on how many years they have served the board, age and cooling-off periods.
This could be good news for some. Joint secretary Amitabh Choudhary and treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry of the board dismissed by the court on January 2 can come back to serve BCCI. Having completed nine years in state bodies, they have a few years left in the board, although both may have to take the cooling-off break.
After the January 2 and 3 Supreme Court orders making Lodha panel’s structural reform recommendations mandatory, several state associations filed appeals saying that a person completing nine years should be allowed to serve the board for nine more years provided he fulfills other conditions.
BCCI’s former legal advisor UN Banerjee had also pointed this out in a letter to the Lodha panel, arguing that the original order said “or” instead of “or/and” while dealing with the nine-year issue. According to him, the original order allowed a person to have nine years in the state plus nine years in BCCI.
BCCI members are keeping fingers crossed. “We’ll wait till January 24 and abide by whatever the judgement is. Our argument was, to run the BCCI you need experience, which is gained from working for state units. If after gathering experience one has to leave, there is no continuity. Nine plus nine means there’s some breathing space and room to put to practice what one has learnt from working in the state body,” a member told Express.
A section of BCCI members believe the FAQs published by the Lodha panel on January 12 on eligibility for office-bearers was erronoeous. “It says ‘this position has been altered’ in the first point referring to nine years. How can the panel alter a SC order? That was our argument.” Several units including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Hyderabad and Haryana had filed petitions.
atreyo@newindianexpress.com