Why oust office-bearers? BCCI asks administrators
MUMBAI: Responding to the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators’ (COA) directives issued on Thursday which took away most of the powers of the BCCI office-bearers, acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary questioned the move to “supplant the office bearers and assume their powers”.
Chaudhary protested against taking away of the right to have a separate legal team for BCCI in the ongoing court hearing on the implementation of the Lodha Committee recommendations .
“...I have still not been able to find in these orders (SC orders dated 02.01.2017 and 30.01.2017), the two cardinal aspects that the CoA has been giving effect to since your very first day in office, namely, that i) No office bearers exist ii) CoA will supplant and replace the office bearers and assume their powers and functions,” Chaudhary stated in his letter addressed to the CoA.
“There is now a further confirmation of your long-standing effort to continue to run down the office-bearers by going so far as even preventing them from appearing in Court through their counsels effectively gagging even their fundamental rights and ensuring that there is no contrary viewpoint before the Court.”
Refereeing to his meeting with CoA on April 21, 2017, where the issue of separate legal representation of the BCCI had been discussed, Chaudhary said an attempt was being made to suppress the office-bearers’ voice.
“The timing of the directive becomes relevant because the Hon’ble Court is about to hear the matter inter alia on the suggestions made by the office-bearers to the constitution proposed by the committee,” the letter said.
The CoA quickly dismissed Chaudhary’s letter in a sentence. “Thank you for your mail. We appreciate its contents. After due consideration, we take this opportunity to reiterate our instructions of 15th March, 2018,” the CoA wrote.
Meanwhile, under instructions from the CoA, BCCI CEO Rahul Johri explained in detail the hiring process of Priya Gupta as BCCI general manager, marketing, communications and digital. “The appointment is in line with the report of the Justice Lodha Committee, which contemplates the appointment of up to six professional managers to assist the CEO. At the CoA meeting on May 21, 2017, Deloitte made a presentation on the Handbook on Core Principles and Policies for Administration of the BCCI (including new organisation structure for BCCI as per the Justice Lodha Committee report). The new organisation structure for BCCI in Appendix 1 of the said Handbook clearly mentions General Manager (Marketing) as one of the six re-aligned/ re-allotted streams in terms of the Justice Lodha Committee report,” Johri said in his reply.