Appointment of Ombudsman, CoA infighting likely to come up as Supreme Court hears Cricket Association of Bihar's petition today

The Supreme Court will take up Cricket Association of Bihar’s (CAB) petition against the apex court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the BCCI on Thursday. According to a report in CricketNext, the BCCI officials are expected to bring up the issue of divisions within the two-member CoA that is headed by Vinod Rai and also comprises of former India women’s captain Diana Edulji. It is one of the three petitions filed by CAB’s Aditya Verma. [caption id=“attachment_5366621” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Supreme Court of India. PTI[/caption] “On January 30, the CoA will complete two years in power. They have been a total failure so far. Even Justice RM Lodha has criticized the functioning of the CoA. In 2017, a four-man committee was constituted, but two of them quit for various reasons over a year back but since then no replacement has been appointed. The BCCI image is suffering as a result due to clear divisions right from the appointment from Team India’s new coach, clean-chit to BCCI CEO Rahul Johri in a sexual harassment case and now more recently how they handled the Hardik Pandya-KL Rahul episode. I intend to bring these issues to the attention of the honourable Supreme Court,” petitioner Verma said. The CoA is expected to ask the SC to appoint an Ombudsman, something they had asked the BCCI to do, according to their 10th Status Report filed in the SC in October last year. The issue of Ombudsman has gained importance in light of the episode involving KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya. The duo, who drew fans’ ire post their questionable comments on a chat show has already given their statement to BCCI CEO Rahul Johri. According to the new BCCI constitution, Johri has to submit his preliminary report to the Ombudsman. “When the CoA was created, Rai was just one of the four votes. As chairman, Rai never had the deciding vote nor does he now. Rai is single-handedly running BCCI and my plea is that CoA should be made a four-member committee again or appoint a separate committee of reputed former India cricketers, who can oversee BCCI till new management takes over. This is one of the three applications,” Verma said. Some 26 members of the BCCI met in Mumbai last week and decided to raise the same issue in front of the SC and highlight the deep divisions in CoA. The second petition questions the clean-chit given to Johri after his name cropped up in the #MeToo scandal. Verma believes the manner in which the investigations were conducted was “not right”, and Johri must step down from his post. Verma’s third petition is related to Bihar cricket body, where he has demanded an ad-hoc committee for the state on the lines of Uttarakhand and Rajasthan.