Ahead of Supreme Court hearing, CoA attacks BCCI office-bearers in ninth status report

The Committee of Administrators (CoA) filed a ninth status report on Wednesday, and made severe remarks against office-bearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The committee has listed a series of events where the board office-bearers tried to systematically undermine the CoA and its decisions.

The Supreme Court will resume hearing the BCCI matter on Thursday. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud will hear the matter. The last hearing on the matter was held on 11 May where the court had asked the Amicus Curiae (Gopal Subramanium) to share the suggestions of the draft constitution with all state associations.

However, the CoA, despite the hearing on the horizon, decided to file its status report. According to CricketNext, who gained an access to the report, the CoA highlighted the Special General Meeting held by the working body, claiming it was an attempt to bypass the decisions taken by the committee. The report also accused the the treasurer of hampering the smooth implementation of the Lodha reforms that the Supreme Court passed in an order in 2016.

Reacting to the status report, one of the office-bearers said, “It appears that conjectures have given rise to the narrative of some of the averments of the report rather than facts.”

In the report, the committee also blamed the acting secretary for dilly-dallying with the signing of the player contracts. The contracts were set to expire on 30 September. CoA then prepared a fresh contract and circulated it to the finance committee, but the finance team failed to provide its views till February 2018. The CoA were then forced to announce it keeping in mind the players’ welfare but still received no co-operation from the secretary who didn’t sign on the pretext that it had to be approved by the general body.

The above sequences of events led the CoA to believe that the pre-report and pre-judgment processes cannot be relied upon to ensure that management and administration of the board is carried out in a manner contemplated by the report and the judgment.