CHENNAI: Just a couple of days ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on the Lodha recommendation, the Committee of Administrators lashed out at disqualified members attending BCCI meetings and explained how they were trying to influence other members who were otherwise willing to comply with the Court order. In its fourth status report, the CoA attacked the disqualified members for creating confusion during meetings of the BCCI.
This has left the CoA and even Justice RM Lodha frustrated that despite the Supreme Court ordering BCCI to follow Lodha recommendations almost a year ago, the BCCI has done nothing.
The report also indicated how the BCCI is being influenced by these disqualified members, terming their action as 'effectively doing indirectly what they have been prohibited by this Hon'ble Court from doing directly'. Such persons, the CoA alleged, had effectively hijacked proceedings at the recent Special General Meeting (SGM). The report was very critical about former BCCI president N Srinivasan and former secretary Niranjan Shah attending the SGMs and AGMs despite being disqualified.
"Such disqualified persons have a vested interest in stalling implementation of judgement because if the judgement is implemented, such disqualified person will have to relinquish control over their respective state associations," the report said.
Citing the 'manifestly disruptive' SGM held on June 26, the CoA said that their efforts to convince BCCI's constituent members to adopt the new constitution were futile.
"The SGM held on June 26, 2017 was attended by various persons who are disqualified from being office bearers of BCCI and/or their respective state/member associations including Mr N Srinivasan (representative of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association) and Mr Niranjan Shah (representative of Saurashtra Cricket Association) amongst others," the report said.
"The matter is still pending before the Supreme Court and we raise any legal querries they call it a disruption (pls check wat the exact word used in status report). If we have to implement we have to explore the possibilities and that is what we in the BCCI are trying to do. Don't think they are trying to stop the Court order," a board veteran close to the Srinivasan camp stated.
The CoA accused BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry of remaining a 'mute spectator' at the SGM, 'lacking the courage or conviction to speak in favour of implementation of the reforms'. Joint secretary Amitabh Choudhary was one of the few persons who urged representatives to adopt the new constitution.
Committee after one year
"As a result, the SGM did not even vote on any of the matters (including the adoption of the new BCCI constitution) on which the Committee of Administrators had written to the constituent members. Instead, the SGM decided to form a special committee to identify the few critical points in respect of the judgement for the General Body of BCCI to consider before its submission to this Hon'ble Court," said the report, while questioning the motive behind the formation of such a committee almost an year after the judgement.
The report also criticised the absence of an Ombudsman at BCCI AGMs since September 2016, terming it a 'refusal to even adhere to the existing BCCI constitution'.
The CoA stressed on the need to have the new constitution in place before the next BCCI elections scheduled to be held in September this year and requested the SC to take steps to ensure that state associations amend their constitutions in line with the Lodha recommendations before December 31.
According to the compliance report (Annexure A-1), the board is yet to implement any of the Lodha recommendations. Even the observation on the status of the website is very interesting. According to CoA, the webisite is in the process of the being translated to Hindi. Incidentally, the court ruling was last year.