Can disqualified office bearers attend BCCI SGM, asks CoA

The Committee of Administrators (CoA), which is in charge of the Indian board, has sought an "urgent" intervention from the Supreme Court to clear the air on whether disqualified office bearers can attend BCCI or ICC meetings. The CoA's request comes two days prior to the BCCI's special general body meeting (SGM) in Delhi on April 9.

The CoA fears the SGM is likely to be attended by many former state and BCCI office bearers who became ineligible under the Lodha Committee recommendations which were approved by the court.

Among those who are likely to attend the SGM is former BCCI president N Srinivasan. Pre-empting such a situation, the CoA had warned the BCCI office bearers and the state associations that only eligible representatives could attend the SGM.

It remains to be seen whether the CoA directives will be obeyed or ignored by Srinivasan and the state associations. During different meetings with the CoA in the last couple of weeks, the three existing office bearers of the BCCI - Amitabh Choudhary (acting secretary), Anirudh Chaudhry (treasurer) and CK Khanna (acting president) - indicated that the Lodha Committee eligibility criteria would not be applicable to the representatives from each state attending the SGM in case the person was not an office bearer. However the CoA is not certain.

In its third status report, which was submitted in the court on Friday, the CoA has asked whether the two sets of frequently asked questions put in place by the Lodha Committee would be part of the BCCI's new constitution. In the second set of FAQs, issued on January 12 this year, the Lodha Committee had said that disqualified office bearers could not come back as representatives for BCCI meetings or on behalf of the board.

"The issue of whether the First FAQs and the Second FAQs form part of the reforms that the Committee of Administrators is required to implement requires urgent attention in light of the notice calling for a Special General Meeting of the BCCI on April 9, 2017," the CoA status report said. The report was signed by former India woman's captain Diana Edulji, who is part of the four-member CoA.

The question that the BCCI office bearers and many state associations are asking is can the FAQs be relevant after the court had declared in its order on January 20 that the Lodha Committee's role would be "confined to overall policy and directions".

In its submission on Friday, the CoA said the second set of FAQs was "particularly relevant" for Sunday's SGM. "For the upcoming Special General Meeting that has been called by the BCCI on April 9, 2017, each existing Member Association of the BCCI is required to send a nominee/representative to attend the same. The Committee of Administrators has been informed that such nominee/representative need not necessarily be an office bearer of the concerned Member Association. It is possible that in some cases the nominees representative of a Member Association to the SGM scheduled on April 9, 2017, may be a person who would be disqualified to represent the Member Association if it is held that the FAQs form part of the reforms that the Committee of Administrators is required to implement."

The two top items on the four-point agenda of the board's SGM concern the forthcoming ICC meetings in Dubai. The ICC Board is expected to vote on the new governance structure and revenue distribution model. Although CoA member Vikram Limaye was the BCCI representative at the last ICC Board meeting in February, the BCCI's office bearers want to pick their own nominee this time, and Srinivasan is one of the favourites.

But with the Lodha Committee reforms having made him ineligible, the CoA wants the court to take the final call.