How India Cements has infiltrated the BCCI

Yesterday the Supreme Court suggested that all India Cements employees be removed from the BCCI. The extent to which India Cements has infiltrated the BCCI is quite breath-taking, effectively giving Srinivasan control on and off the field As the Financial Express reports: “IPL chief financial officer Prasanna Kannan works for India Cements and, last year, the Enforcement Directorate sent him a notice regarding alleged FEMA violations. India and CSK captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is vice-president of India Cements. The company also employs players such as Rahul Dravid, Dinesh Karthik, Lakshmipathy Balaji and R Ashwin.” [caption id=“attachment_1454669” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  N Srinivasan has his people everywhere in the BCCI and the TNCA. AP[/caption] That by itself is quite impressive but it doesn’t stop there. Srinivasan made sure India Cements employee is L Sivaramakrishnan is one of two player representatives to the ICC, ensuring he has someone loyal to him as part of the decision-making process by the players. PS Raman, Srinivasan’s lawyer is a legal consultant for both the BCCI and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, which is naturally crawling with India Cements employees as well. The internal auditors of India Cements, BCCI and TNCA are also the same. And those on the cement company payroll have even been match referees in BCCI tournaments, though it is unclear if they stood in matches involving Tamil Nadu. Ed Hawkins, journalist and author of Bookie, Gambler, Fixer, Spy has more details about how Srinivasan uses India Cements employees to bypass the BCCI. “Two emails from April 2013 show an apparent disrespect for the protocol of his own organisation,” Hawkins writes on his blog. “On April 15, Peter Griffiths of IMG, which helps run IPL, wrote to BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale to appoint a commission to hear a complaint under IPL 2013 operational rules. The rules mandate BCCI secretary to pick the members. But five days later, he got this email from Tamil Nadu Cricket Association secretary Kasi Viswanathan: “I am reproducing the message written by the President to you: ‘Sanjay, Rajiv Shukla, Ajay Shirke and Ravi Shastri may hear the complaint. N Srinivasan’.” Hawkins also discovered that it was Kannan who was making appointments for home series, not BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, in blatant violation of the BCCI’s constitution. “In another sidestepping of hierarchy, Prasanna Kannan, IPL chief financial officer who is reported to be an employee of India Cements, informs Jagdale of the appointments for home series against England, Pakistan only on April 4, 2013, long after these had been held in late 2012 and early 2013.” According to Harish Salve, the lead counsel for Aditya Verma, the petitioner in the case, has also claimed Sundar Raman, the IPL ceo, is an India cements employee. In the Supreme Court hearings on the Justice Mudgal Committee report, the court has so far taken a dim view of Srinivasan and the way he has run the BCCI. They have asked him to step down and called his lust for power “nauseating”. They also made three proposals to clean up the BCCI: - That Srinivasan be been removed from the post of BCCI president and Sunil Gavaskar take over while an investigation goes on. - That RR and CSK not take part in IPL 7. - That All India Cements employees to be removed from whatever position they are in the BCCI – staff, auditors, Chief Financial Officer and even the computer operators. The case has been listed for hearing again on 16 April, while the board will pass an interim order today. You can the full Financial Express story here. You can read Ed Hawkins blog here.