NEW DELHI: Supreme Court of India removed Anurag Thakur as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with a show cause notice issued in regards to charges of perjury and contempt of court, saying , saying he should "forthwith cease and desist from" the board's work. The apex court also removed Ajay Shirke, secretary of BCCI.
A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur and comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud also decided to initiate contempt proceedings against Thakur by seeking his response as to why he should not be held liable for obstructing the implementation of the court's directions aimed at reforming BCCI.
The court ordered that the working of BCCI will be looked after by a committee of administrators and requested senior advocate Fali S Nariman and senior advocate Gopal Subramanian, who was assisting in the matter as amicus curaie, to assist the court in nominating persons as the members in the committee of administrators in two weeks. The matter for passing the direction for nominating the persons in committee of administrators will be taken up on January 19, said the bench.
Until the new administrators take over the working of BCCI, the senior most vice president of the board will act as the president and the present joint secretary will assume the work as secretary, added the bench.
The apex court directed that all office bearers of BCCI and state associations will have to give their undertaking that they will abide by the directions of the court. In an earlier order on July 18 by the court, most of BCCI office bearers were ineligible to carry on and the panel headed by former chief justice of India R M Lodha had asked the court to remove them.
The court reminded the BCCI top brass that Thakur as president of the board had asked for a letter from International Cricket Council (ICC) CEO Dave Richardson that the appointment of a Comptroller and auditor general (CAG) nominee in the cricket body would compromise with autonomy and amount to government interference.
"If you want to escape perjury charges, you ought to apologise. At every stage you have been trying to obstruct. Everyone wants to go around and continue to hold the post even after 70 years. This is such a lucrative business that everyone wants to go on forever" the bench had said.
It had also referred to a letter by ICC chairman Shashank Manohar and said even he has stated that Thakur had asked for such a letter.
The apex court had also said that by asking ICC to write such a letter, BCCI has intended to defeat the purpose of the verdict, that too when the bench had made it clear that appointment of CAG nominee would bring about transparency in the cricket body.
The bench had accepted the recommendation that one person should hold one post in the cricket administration to avoid conflict of interest and scrapping of all administrative committees in BCCI after the CAG nominee comes in.
(with inputs from PTI)