Supreme Court prohibits N Srinivasan, Niranjan Shah from attending BCCI's special general body meeting

The Supreme Court of India on Monday has restrained former president N Srinivasan and ex secretary Niranjan Shah from attending the BCCI’s Special General Meeting (SGM) on 26 July. [caption id=“attachment_3742285” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of N Srinivasan. Reuters[/caption] The apex court has also made it clear that only the office bearers of the state associations can attend the meeting and also asked them to implement certain practical Lodha reforms while other ones can be debated. “The SGM shall be held at the time and date fixed. The meeting shall be attended only by the office bearers of the associations, not by nominees or representatives. “All concerned shall implement the recommendations of the Justice Lodha Committee report as far as practicable, barring the issues which have been raised pertaining to membership, number of members of the selection committee, concept of associate membership, etc,” the bench said. “The purpose is to implement the report as far as practicable and, thereafter, it shall be debated as to how the scheme of things can be considered so that the cricket, the ‘gentleman’s game’, remains nearly perfect. Be it noted, the issue with regard to disqualification or qualification of the representative is kept open. “You hold the meeting. Act on the Lodha committee’s recommendations as to which will be implemented and which will not be implemented. You send only your office bearers. Do not send N Srinivasan and Niranjan Shah. We do not want to make it adverserial,” it said, adding, “we do not want the meeting to be stalled”. With regard to stopping Srinivasan from attending the SGM, the BCCI opposed the decision and argued that Lodha committee do not have powers to stop Srinivasan. Senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, said that state associations have the right to nominate a person to attend the meeting and Lodha panel recommendations says that a disqualified person cannot be an office bearer which includes posts of president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. “Let’s be fair. They cannot target somebody like this. State associations are entitled to appoint anybody as a nominee,” Sibal said. “No inquiry was there against N Srinivasan under the order of this court. There is no probe, any allegations of cover up against him. The only issue is of disqualification for being over 70-year-old and the nine year tenure in the state association. He has not served as an office bearer of BCCI for nine years. How can they tell state associations not to nominate him? Under what law they say so?,” he asked. Both Srinivasan and Shah were disqualified from becoming the office bearers of BCCI or state cricket bodies as they fell under the category of debarment for either having conflict of interest or attaining the age of 70 years or being an office bearers of state cricket associations and BCCI for cumulative terms of nine years as per recommendations of Lodha panel and accepted by the apex court. The bench has fixed the matter for hearing on August 18 when it will consider two issues – implementation of Lodha committee report as far as practicable by the BCCI and state associations and the two names which are to be chosen to fill up the vacancies that has arisen in the apex-court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) headed by former Vinod Rai. With inputs from PTI