Mumbai: Can BCCI office-bearers C.K. Khanna, Amitabh Chaudhary and Anirudh Chaudhry — work independently of the Committee of Administrators (CoA)?
In its order of January 2, 2017 that removed Anurag Thakur as BCCI president and Ajay Shirke as secretary and also set disqualification norms for office-bearers, the Supreme Court said: “In view of the directions contained above, the seniormost Vice-President (C.K. Khanna) of BCCI shall perform the duties of President, BCCI and the Joint Secretary (Amitabh Chaudhary) shall perform the duties of Secretary.
“Those office-bearers of BCCI who are not disqualified may continue subject to their filing an unconditional undertaking before this Court within four weeks of the date of this order to abide by and implement the directions contained in the judgment dated 18 July, 2016.
“Upon the CoA nominated by this Court assuming charge, the existing office-bearers shall function subject to the supervision and control of the CoA. The CoA would have the power to issue all appropriate directions to facilitate due supervision and control.”
The Supreme Court also said the CoA shall supervise the administration of BCCI through its Chief Executive Officer (Rahul Johri). And after naming the members of the CoA, the Supreme Court by its order or January 30 said: “Mr. Vinod Rai shall be the Chairman of the CoA. The CEO of BCCI shall report to the CoA and the administrators shall supervise the management of BCCI.”
The office-bearers who have not been affected by the disqualification norm at the BCCI level, Amitabh Chaudhary and Anirudh Chaudhry (treasurer) have submitted their undertaking, the contents of which have not been revealed so far. BCCI watchers believe that they would not have given an unconditional undertaking.
In the absence of any information on the nature of the undertaking given by the office-bearers (not disqualified by the order of Jan. 2), the Supreme Court’s interpretation, on Friday (March 24) of the nine-year distinct tenure ceiling set by the Justice Lodha Committee at the BCCI and State level and later validated by the Supreme Court’s judgment of July 18, 2016, may have made Messrs. Khanna, Amitabh Chaudhary and Anirudh Chaudhry understand that they have the right to discharge their functions.
But, according to the order of Jan. 2 and 30 “only under the supervision and control of the CoA.”
All the aforementioned office-bearers, would go into the three-year cooling off period, only when notice for the next BCCI election is served.
That’s the million-dollar question now because the CoA is still trying to find ways to persuade the full members to comply with the Supreme Court order of July 18, 2016 (to accept the Justice Lodha Committee recommendations).
As of now only the 31 members have the right to change the MoU and Rules and Regulations of the BCCI. And the CoA is not even in the know on who the eligible people in the 31 associations are, who can be called for a Special General Meeting, even if they decide so soon.
The news on the grapevine is that eventually the entire reforms in cricket report may be referred to the Constitutional Bench.
What is strange though — even when the full members (barring Vidarbha) rejected many of the Lodha Committee proposals at an SGM in Mumbai last year — is the decision of the office-bearers of associations in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab, Bengal, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha, Tripura, Saurashtra to cease to exist or resign, either because they were over 70, held the office-bearer position for nine years (at BCCI or State) or came under the category of any other disqualification norm.
Secondly a few associations also went to the apex court to seek clarity on the nine-year upper limit interpretation. After the two important developments were related to the Lodha Committee recommendations!
