In his riposte to the Committee of Administrators’ directive to the BCCI staff to stay away from the BCCI Special General Meeting convened in New Delhi on June 22, the BCCI’s acting-secretary Amitabh Choudhary has said that the import of the communication to the BCCI staff is against the extant Rules and Regulations of the BCCI and hence untenable.
The CoA — which has been reduced to two members in former CAG Vinod Rai and former India women’s team captain Diana Edulji — has reckoned that the BCCI has convened the SGM without taking prior approval and hence has defied the directions it issued in March.
In a close to 3,000-word rejoinder addressed to the CoA, Choudhary has explained that the SGM has been requisitioned by the members, who constitute the BCCI, that the general body is supreme and also that “once the requisite number of members’ requisitions is received, it is the will of the members that has to prevail and not that of the office-bearers or even of the committee and that once the members who constitute the very Board have decided to meet, there is nothing in the Rules of the BCCI that can prevent the meeting from being held.” Choudhary has also referred to a CoA communication (April 2017) that considers that the “extant Rules and Regulations of the BCCI are still in vogue.’’
In fact the CoA had conveyed to the acting-secretary saying: “We have no intention of unduly restricting/curtailing the functioning of the various committees of the BCCI and/or the General Body.’’
Choudhary believes that the “real reason” behind the CoA’s communication to the BCCI staff and marked to the three BCCI office-bearers is “to prevent the general body from discussing issues in which the decisions taken by the CoA, whimsically, arbitrarily, opaquely and without any authority and even by keeping the office-bearers in the dark regarding the same. “Among other items on the agenda were the domestic schedule wherein the inclusion of Bihar (in the Ranji Trophy) is mandated by the Supreme Court and also large-scale irregular appointments made on various posts in the BCCI having huge financial ramifications.”
In conclusion Choudhary has beseeched the CoA “to act in accordance with law, Rules and Regulations of the BCCI as well as the orders of the apex court, and desist from hindering the lawful functioning of the BCCI.”