Win for Lalit Modi faction as high court removes CP Joshi aide as RCA point person

The Rajasthan High Court on Friday passed an order restraining Bavani Samota, a close aide of Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) president CP Joshi, from acting as the point person of the state cricket body with the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI).

A bench of Justice MN Bhandari passed the order on an application moved by RCA secretary RS Nandu and treasurer Pinkesh Jain, both considered close to former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

In their petition, Nandu and Jain had said that Samota’s appointment was illegal as he does not hold any office in the RCA or its affiliate districts. He is not even a member of the RCA.

Hearing the case, the court asked as to why Samota was nominated in the first place, against the provisions of the RCA constitution. Directing the RCA to withdraw Samota’s nomination, the court said that all communication with the BCCI should be led by the RCA president, until May 19, when the last IPL game is played in Jaipur.

The bench also directed RCA to pay salaries to the cricket body employees, as earlier ordered by the court. The cheque-signing procedure for the purpose would be as per the RCA Constitution and cheques would be signed by the treasurer, secretary and the president’s nominee, the court said.

On another grievance of the petitioner —unfair manner of distribution of complimentary passes —the bench said a court-appointed player of Rajasthan will collect the passes from Rajasthan Royals team and distribute them.

Under the venue agreement between RCA, BCCI and the franchise, RCA is allocated 10 percent of the passes for each game.

With this order, the court has settled three contentious issues —extra constitutional role of Samota, unfair distribution of passes by RCA president, and cheque-signing procedure for payment of salary of RCA employees.