Former judge A.B. Pal is accused of mismanaging affairs, overstepping his jurisdiction and spending crores of rupees without proper authorisation.

New Delhi: The Tripura High Court has tasked three senior advocates, including state Advocate General (AG) Arun Kanti Bhowmik, to get former Gauhati High Court judge A.B. Pal to resign as the administrator of the Tripura Cricket Association (TCA).

The three-member panel has been given time till Monday, the next date of hearing in the case, to persuade the former judge to quit on his own.

The former judge had been appointed the administrator of the TCA by the Tripura High Court in July 2018 but his tenure has been controversial, with Pal being accused of mismanaging affairs, overstepping his jurisdiction and spending crores of rupees without proper authorisation, among other charges.

Hearing a clutch of petitions seeking his removal, a two-judge bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Arindam Lodhi first indicated Thursday that it would be beneficial if Justice Pal resigned from his post, reiterating it when the matter was again heard Friday.

“Regardless of the allegations and counter-allegations made by the parties with regard to the manner in which the affairs of the association are now being carried out, we request all the learned counsel representing the parties to sit with the learned administrator and make him understand the advantages and benefits of honourably relieving his duties so conferred upon him by the Court,” the bench said.

“This we say so for the reason that we do not want the reputation of a retired Judge of this court to be sullied in any manner.”

Judge addresses court in an unusual hearing

The high court in its 24 January order noted that the administrator had incurred “huge expenditure of Rs 18 crore (approximately) without leave, knowledge, information or permission” of the court.

“… (b) He took a decision to stop construction of a cricket stadium of international level. (c) The constitution of the body i.e. Tripura Cricket Association was modified and changed without leave of this Court (d) At some stage during the course of the hearing, the learned administrator expressed lack of proper functioning of his faculties, precisely loss of memory,” the order reads.

The bench also ordered that “record of all the expenditure incurred and the basis on which new appointments were made” should also be made available to it.

The order, incidentally, came after the former judge “expressed his desire of addressing the court in person and not through his lawyer”. After Pal was heard for some time, however, his lawyer intervened and prayed that the matter be adjourned for another date.

The controversy

The matter had reached the court after former Ranji cricketer Sandipan Ghosh filed a plea seeking judicial intervention “to stop the reckless expenditure of money by the administration and prevent unfairness” in the TCA.

In his plea, Ghosh listed alleged violations made during Pal’s tenure. He alleged that in August 2018, “acting on his own whims and without any opinion from the general body”, Pal had “converted the post” of Jayanta Dey from honorary general secretary to the post of general secretary (advisor) “just to provide him with a handsome remuneration of Rs 75,000” a month.

Three months later, in November, Pal allegedly removed Dey and appointed Chira Ranjan Paul in his place with the same remuneration of Rs 75,000. Pal had also appointed reporter Alak Ghosh as the treasurer, allegedly on the same salary.

“It is learnt on enquiry that, soon after his appointment, the Administrator has purchased brand new uniforms of almost 20,00,000 (Rs 20 lakh) even though huge numbers of uniforms were lying unused in the store-rooms of TCA,” the plea reads.

Ghosh has alleged that the administrator rented 10 new cars “at his own whims and without any consultation” and bought 20 air conditioning machines and other accessories costing over Rs 1 crore for various dressing rooms without any tender.

“That an international stadium is under construction in the TIT ground, Narshingarh, for the development of cricket in Tripura for which a huge fund was previously sanctioned by the earlier executive committee,” the plea reads. “The administrator, however, has recently instructed the construction agency verbally to stop the construction work citing insufficiency of funds in TCA, though the real status of the account of TCA transpires entirely the opposite picture.”

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