BCCI VS COA

Remove BCCI's current office bearers: CoA to SC

by Cricbuzz Staff • Last updated on

The CoA is unhappy with the ouster of CEO Rahul Johri from the BCCI meeting © AFP

In its fifth status report submitted to the Supreme Court, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) has asked for the removal of the current office bearers of the BCCI for the non-compliance of the court's orders to adopt the Lodha reforms. The CoA cited the court's January 2 ruling that ousted Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke from their BCCI posts, for the eviction of acting president CK Khanna, acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary and treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary.

"The Committee of Administrators submits that since the then President and Secretary of the BCCI had been removed because the BCCI failed to implement the reforms mandated by the Judgement despite a period of six months having passed, it is only fair that the current office bearers be treated in the same manner because a further period of six months have elapsed since the said office bearers submitted their undertakings and the reforms mandated by this Hon'ble Court have still not been implemented," the report stated.

The report has been submitted two days ahead of the July 18 hearing, wherein the three-member SC bench comprising Justices Deepak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud will reconsider some of the Lodha recommendations which it previously accepted, like the one-state-one-vote, strength of the selection committee and the concept of associate membership. Earlier in an SGM held on July 26, BCCI had decided to selectively adopt the Lodha reforms, leaving out five of them.

It was during the same SGM on July 26, when BCCI CEO Rahul Johri was asked to leave. The latest report by CoA, claims that the office-bearers deliberately misconstrued the SC order and ousted Johri from the SGM.

"After the attendance register was signed, the CEO and the other administrative staff including the legal team of the BCCI was asked to leave the meeting on the purported basis that the order dated July 24, 2017 passed by this hon'ble Court only permits office bearers to attend the same"

The CoA further wrote that this was a pre-planned and orchestrated move by the BCCI and explained the 'obvious' motive behind the same. "The motivations of such a clever manoeuvre are fairly obvious. The presence of the CEO in the previous SGM held on June 26, 2017 had enabled the Comittee of Administrators to receive first-hand account of the proceedings and bring conduct of certain specific individuals to the attention of this Hon'ble Court. The absence of CEO from the July 26 SGM would make (and has made) that task very difficult."

The CoA brought to SC's notice that the BCCI had failed to adopt a new fund disbursement policy which was formulated by Deloitte in line with the Lodha reforms. "Adoption of the new fund disbursment policy by BCCI is one such reform aimed at ensuring proper allocation of funds to the State Associations based on need/requirement and with appropriate checks in place to ensure proper utlization and reporting by State associations."

The report conveyed to the SC, BCCI's failure to appoint a new Ombudsman, despite the position being left vacant since September 2016 after the Justice (retd.) AP Shah stepped down. He had been roped in to address the conflict of interest issues prevalent within Indian cricket. The CoA also noted that the BCCI failed to adopt the new BCCI conflict of interest rules during the SGM in July, despite being handed the copy of the same through email more than a month prior to the meeting. Since the BCCI did not list new conflict of interest rules as one of the five reforms it was against, there was no justifiable reason for BCCI to not adopt the same.

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