As an ad hoc arrangement, the BCCI’s Committee of Administrators (CoA) has obtained consent from Justice D.K. Jain (Retd.) to carry out the work of the Ethics Officer. Justice Jain — a Supreme Court judge from 2006 to 2013 — was last month appointed as the BCCI Ombudsman by the apex court.
The CoA on Thursday explained in a release that “Since transparency and measures to avoid conflict of interest are important aspects of the reforms process, there is a need for an Ethics Officer to be appointed at the earliest, so that the provisions relating to conflict of interest under the BCCI Constitution be implemented immediately and complaints/references relating to conflict of interest can be considered and addressed by a duly qualified person.”
Justice R.M. Lodha who had authored the reforms in cricket report three years ago had said at the outset that “The functioning of the BCCI cannot be truly transparent and independent without the creation of three new authorities essential to its functioning in its new avatar. One (The Ombudsman) to resolve internal conflicts independent of the BCCI, another (Ethics Officer) to administer the principles governing conflict of interest and a third (Electoral Officer) to ensure that the process of selecting office-bearers is clean and transparent.”
Touching upon the Ethics Officer’s role, Lodha had said: “The monitoring of the principles of Conflict of Interest along with the Code of Behaviour of the BCCI and any other such rules shall be done by an Ethics Officer. His powers include the laying down of additional guidelines or by-laws on ethics, the initiation of investigation or adjudicatory proceedings and the award of warnings, fines, reprimands, suspensions or other action as may be recommended to the BCCI.
