BCCI acting secretary hurls fresh bouncer at CoA in scathing letter

Mumbai: A day after Committee of Administrators (CoA) arrested all the functioning powers of the current set of office bearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), board acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary has lashed out at the decision by penning down a stinging letter to the Supreme Court-appointed committee.

In a bold move, CoA had decided to virtually clipped the wings of three principal BCCI office bearers comprising CK Khanna (acting BCCI president), Amitabh Choudhary (acting BCCI secretary) and Anirudh Chaudhry (BCCI treasurer), thus barring them from convening any meetings including working committee or selection meetings, or conduct any travel without getting prior consent.

Hitting back at the CoA's move, Choudhary, in his letter to the CoA, questioned several decisions taken by the committee since its formation on January 2 last year besides accusing them of systematically usurping powers from the BCCI office bearers.

"Coming back to the paramount goal of realization of reforms in the BCCI i.e. the implementation of the 18th July order, I do not recall of any mail or other communication made to me in the last 8 months which refers to the implementation of the reforms. On the other hand it has only been on account of my single handed efforts in the last few months, being bound by the undertaking given before the highest court of the land, that as many as 13 full members of the BCCI, nearly half of the Board, have converged upon one point of view of accepting all reforms barring the very few impracticable ones as has been mandated by the Apex Court on July 24, 2017," Choudhary said.

Choudhary further pointed fingers on the CoA's motives behind repeatedly hounding the BCCI members instead of working in tandem with them towards the implementation of Justice (Retd) R.M Lodha-led committee recommendations.

He cited numerous instances of the BCCI office-bearers being kept in the dark in the appointment procedure of various posts.

"Several appointments have been made in the BCCI without any information of the procedure adopted to the office bearers even on posts that hitherto did not exist in the BCCI like that of the GM (Marketing and Digital Communication). Selections to the post of the Director NCA, the head of the ACU and many other posts have been made on the basis of the advertisements issued by the undersigned but the undersigned was kept completely in the dark about the selection process and the decisions made therein till suddenly the appointment letters were dropped by e-mail for being signed on the dotted line," he wrote.

The BCCI acting secretary concluded the letter by urging the CoA to work as a unit with the office-bearers towards the implementation of the Lodha reforms.

"Considering more than a year has elapsed since the appointment of the Committee the undersigned therefore requests the Committee, with all humility at his command, that instead of running each other down it guides us all with single minded determination towards the paramount objective of expediting the implementation of the 18th July, 2017 judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India," Choudhary concluded.

The CoA's guidelines had come close on the heels of their seventh status report, in which they sought directions from the Supreme Court regarding the removal of the existing BCCI office-bearers, as they have completed their respective three-year terms in office.

In its seventh status report to the apex court, the two-member CoA, comprising of Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji, cited that the term of office of the present office-bearers expired on March 1, 2018, according to the BCCI's existing Constitution.

"The term of the current office bearers and vice-presidents has expired on March 1, 2018, i.e. a period of three years from the date they were elected. Accordingly, there is a need to elect fresh office bearers for BCCI," the CoA had said in its report.