BCCI president's election suspended

The High Court in Chennai has restrained the newly-elected office-bearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from transacting any business on behalf of the Board, and appointed S Mohan, a former Judge of the Supreme Court, as its interim Administrator.

A division bench, comprising justice PD Dinakaran and K Raviraja Pandian, said "We are of the considered opinion that the undertaking offered on behalf of the BCCI not to disqualify any member from any zone, has not been given effect to in letter and spirit as directed in our judgment dated September 29," the judges said. Prima facie, there were reasons to believe that the undertaking had been breached. "Hence, we are satisfied that a prima facie case has been made out for granting an injunction. Therefore, there shall be an order of interim injunction until further orders," according to The Hindu newspaper.

The ruling came after a petition was filed by the Maharashtra Cricket Association and Netaji Cricket Club because a voting representative of Maharashtra had been disqualified from putting in his vote.

"The board misled the court by not mentioning anything about voters in their undertaking and then disqualified a Maharashtra Cricket Association member from voting," explained Nalini Chidambaram, acting on behalf of Netaji Cricket Club. "So we went to the court and asked them to review their decision."

Mahendra won the election after Jagmohan Dalmiya, the outgoing presidentm, used his casting vote to decide a tie between Mahendra and Sharad Pawar.