IMPHAL: The six new full members of the BCCI from the Northeast have appealed to the Supreme Court to consider the tenures of their office-bearers afresh, instead of taking into account how many years they have held office already. These new members are Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
If the years the officials have spent in these positions are counted, some of them have to take the cooling-off break, which applies to all those who have spent three years as office bearers of state bodies and the BCCI. If their tenure has exceeded nine years, they are not eligible for any post.
“The six states have filed a petition requesting that the terms of office-bearers be not considered with a retrospective effect. We all are new entities and the appeal is that the tenure of officials be counted from the day we have been granted full membership,” the BCCI’s Northeast Task Force secretary Naba Bhattacharya told Express.
He is also secretary of the Meghayala Cricket Association and has to take the break if the court turns down their appeal. The cooling-off clause is a major change recommended by the Lodha Commission, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court. It rules out a number of officials, who have been in chair for over three years. This is in fact a grudge among many old members who have said that this disrupts continuity, since the experienced set of office-bearers will have to make way for new faces. However, the Northeast teams feel they should not be judged by the same yardstick.
“We were not full members and did not get funds or anything else that the full members did. Our plea is, we should be considered as entities from the day we’ve been granted full membership,” said Bhattacharya, adding that a petition to this effect was filed before the Supreme Court’s final verdict on the BCCI reforms case on August 9. Other than the Supreme Court, some of these states have also approached the Committee of Administrators with the same request.
“We are not sure when the tenure will be counted from. Our request is, since we are new members, the period in office for officials from these states should start from zero,” remarked Manipur Cricket Association secretary Priyananda Singh. All these states are in the process of revising their constitution in compliance with the Supreme Court order. The last date for submitting the declaration of compliance is September 20. Manipur is holding a special general meeting on September 19 to finalise things. Meghalaya has called a similar meeting on September 13. atreyo@newindianexpress.com