Vinod Rai-led CoA seeks removal of current BCCI office-bearers citing end of their tenure

New Delhi: At loggerheads with the current set of BCCI office-bearers, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) on Thursday sought their removal, citing the end of their tenures as per the BCCI constitution. The CoA also asked for the Supreme Court’s direction on having an AGM without formal adoption of the new constitution according to the Lodha Committee recommendation. [caption id=“attachment_4383279” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of CoA chief Vinod Rai. AFP[/caption] The two-member CoA comprising Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji on Thursday filed their eighth status report in the Supreme Court, where they have recommended election of a fresh set of office-bearers by removing acting president CK Khanna, acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary and treasurer Aniruddh Chaudhry. The CoA has also recommended removal of India Premier League (IPL) chairman Rajeev Shukla, stating that he has also outlived his tenure. The relations between the BCCI office-bearers and CoA have hit an all-time low. While the Supreme Court-appointed committee has constantly accused the office-bearers of delaying the implementation of the Lodha reforms, the latter feel that Rai and Co have overstepped the brief given to them by the apex court. The CoA in their report cited Rule 15 (i) of the existing BCCI constitution which states: “The election of office-bearers and vice-presidents shall be held at the AGM of the board every year. The office-bearers and vice-president so elected will hold office for three years.” The CoA then gave the full list of office-bearers elected during their 85th AGM in Chennai in March, 2015 where Jagmohan Dalmiya was elected as the president. So according to the existing constitution, the tenure of all office-bearers, elected during the AGM will end on 1 March, 2018. Subsequently in the next two-and-a-half years, Dalmiya passed away, Shashank Manohar resigned while Anurag Thakur was ousted by the apex court. Accordingly, Khanna as the senior-most vice-president and Chaudhary as the joint secretary took over as acting president and secretary respectively, while Aniruddh continued as joint secretary as per the apex court’s order on 2 January, 2017. The CoA wrote, “In our respectful understanding the aforesaid order dated January 2, 2017 passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court does not deal with issue of tenure of office-bearers. The said order provides that i) the senior most vice-president shall perform duties of president. ii) joint secretary shall perform duties of secretary. iii) other office-bearers shall continue, all subject to conditions stipulated therein. Accordingly, if the respective terms of senior-most vice-president and joint secretary have expired, they cannot continue to perform their duties of the president and secretary respectively.” They also mentioned that Shukla as the IPL governing council chairman was given an extension at the 87th AGM of the BCCI in September, 2016 for a period of one year. The CoA stated that Shukla’s term had already ended on 20 September, 2017 and there was a need to select a fresh set of office-bearers. However, it is a given that the three office-bearers will challenge the CoA recommendations as they are ready with instances where Rai and his committee did not adhere to the standard protocol of calling general body meetings on policy decisions. A senior BCCI official in the know of things told PTI: “The CoA on one hand quotes the existing BCCI constitution for removal of the office-bearers but at the same time does not summon general body on policy matters. The players’ central contract should have been placed at the GB. Similarly all the major appointments – ACU office, GM (marketing), GM (cricket operations) should have been done in consultation with general body. So on one hand, you cite BCCI constitution to remove them and on other hand bypass it on policy matters. “Also, Rai started interfering in technical cricketing matters, which certainly wasn’t his domain. A question can be asked about how come he was asking questions on cricketing issue whereas the Supreme Court mandate was to implement Lodha Committee recommendations,” the senior official fumed.