CHENNAI: The special general body meeting of the BCCI on July 26, which followed soon after the Supreme Court hearing, witnessed a few officials demanding that board secretary Amitabh Choudary stop recording the proceedings. The BCCI, since 2015, has been recording all its proceedings in SGMs and this latest demand came after the Cricket Advisory Committee filed an audio tape as evidence before the Supreme Court, to highlight the officials who were against the implementation of Lodha panel recommendations.
During the Supreme Court hearing, the CoA through an audio tape, revealed that former board president N Srinivasan was disrupting the meeting to implement the recommendations in full. And it is understood that during the SGM in New Delhi on July 26, members belonging to Srinivasan’s faction wanted Choudhary to stop the practice. “We were discussing the internal matters of the BCCI and with minutes being noted, we felt that any discussions on this should remain within the four walls of the room. There was no need to record because people were leaking some of the confidential issues and it affects the trust factor,” a senior functionary of the board, who demanded the recordings be stopped, told Express.
However, Choudhary seems to have stood his ground and maintained that the meeting be recorded as the board needs to show the apex court that they are not stalling any of the recommendations. Interestingly, the board during the SGM, included age tenure and apex council’s strength to its list of contentious points which are difficult to implement as per the recommendations. The board also didn’t allow its CEO Rahul Johri to attend the meeting.
Explaining why the two points were added to the already listed one-state, one-vote, number of selectors, and cooling-off period, an official who was part of the meeting said: “We had already filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court listing the three problems, but for some strange reason, few of the members wanted to alter the list and add two more.
“This is sure to come to the notice of the Supreme Court and as a precautionary measure the secretary and the president maintained that the meeting be recorded as the court might pull them up in the next hearing,” said an official, who has been open to accepting the reforms. However, what is interesting here is that most of the members were convinced of the 70-year age cap as in the last three decades, only Jagmohan Dalmiya got elected as an office-bearer past the stipulated age and even he occupied the chair only for five months before passing away in 2015. The only two to have objected to the age cap are Srinivasan and Niranjan Shah, as they are well past 70 years and have already completed their nine-year tenure in the board in different capacities.