CoA accused of double standards

Mumbai: Referring to the exoneration of BCCI CEO Rahul Johri in a sexual harassment case, the Board’s old guard accused the current dispensation of “double standards” in dealing with cases related to players. The members of the group met here Friday “to discuss and deliberate upon the state of affairs of the BCCI and expressed grave concern over the same”. The group comprised former president N Srinivasan’s loyalists such as Anirudh Chaudhary and Niranjan Shah, besides representatives of 14 state units. Taking note of the suspension slapped on Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul for their loose talk on women in a TV show, they said in a statement, “The members expressed shock at the double standards on display in dealing with issues related to players where show cause notices have been issued and the players have been suspended pending enquiry. “... And in dealing with issues relating to the CEO who was not even suspended and in whose case the enquiry procedure adopted was arbitrary and in violation of the BCCI’s constitution and in the absence of any decision from the CoA as a committee.” Johri, the chief executive of the BCCI, had received a clean chit in the sexual harassment allegations levelled against him by two women in the wake of the #MeToo Movement. Aiming for “restoration of democracy” in the Board, this group is planning to approach the Supreme Court again with their grievances. On the CoA chief Vinod Rai and member Diana Edulji, they said in the statement, “The members expressed shock at the manner in which decision making was happening in the CoA where the decisions and views of one member were being ignored and the decisions of the other were being executed irregularly despite there being a deadlock in decision making on such decisions.”