SC to decide Shah, Ganguly tenures
nMUMBAI:THE Board of Control for Cricket in India’s case, which will decide the fate of its president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah, is listed for hearing at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
BCCI on behalf of these senior board officials have appealed to the Supreme Court seeking a revision of the rule in the new constitution which states that administrators have to undergo a three-year cooling-off break after six successive years in any state unit or in BCCI.
Ganguly and Shah took over their roles in BCCI in October 2019 and as per the constitution will have to serve the mandated cooling period. The former India captain will complete his tenure by July 27 while Shah’s tenure ended earlier this month. Going by the same rule joint-secretary Jayesh George’s term gets over on September 23.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India have also filed a plea to relieve them from BCCI and state units’ Apex Council and Governing Council. Instead, CAG requested the court to consider “modifying” its original order where it can perform its primary role—of an auditor—on an “annual” or “biennial” basis.
It is learnt that petitioners Cricket Association of Bihar are going to pray to the court that Ganguly and Shah should be allowed to continue “for continuity” and because they haven’t been able to operate normally due to the pandemic.
IPL SEEKS GOVT NOD
Meanwhile, BCCI has formally written to the India government with two proposals to stage the IPL between September and November either in the UAE or in India. While BCCI discussed modalities of staging a closed door IPL in India in its Apex Council meet this week, board officials confirmed UAE is where IPL 13 is most likely to be hosted, and a government approval is awaited, IPL chief Brijesh Patel said on Tuesday. Monday’s postponement of this year’s T20 World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in Australia from Oct 18, has opened up a window for BCCI to stage the IPL.
Cricket boards in UAE and Sri Lanka have offered to host the league. “We are yet to finalise when it will begin, maybe sometime in September,” Patel said. “They (UAE) made an offer. We’ll discuss the issue in the next governing council meeting in 7-10 days.”