CoA’s Hunt for Clarity on ‘Conflict of Interest’ and CAC Composition up for Discussion

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) need clarification from the apex court on several key issues but have been kept waiting so far. The next date of the BCCI petition in the SC was supposed to take place on July 30 but that has been pushed back.

As the CoA meet in New Delhi on Friday (July 26) morning, the top of the agenda will be discussion with amicus curiae PS Narasimha on the matter to try and bring up this issue in front of the apex court as soon as possible.

“There is no clarity on when the BCCI matter will come up in the Supreme Court next. We can’t just keep on waiting to get clarity on the conflict of interest issue. The CoA will invite amicus Narasimha for the meeting and hope he can resolve this matter with the SC,” a senior BCCI official informed CricketNext.

The CoA need clarity on the ‘conflict of interest’ ruling passed by BCCI Ethics Officer Justice (Retd) DK Jain against former cricketers Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman.

According to Jain’s ruling, the cricketers are supposed to abide by ‘one person, one vote’ and have to give up their position on the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) if they want to continue in their position as IPL franchise officials and TV commentators.

All three of them have resigned from the position of CAC forcing the CoA to come up with a new panel featuring former cricketers Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy. This was the same ad-hoc panel which picked the women’s senior team head coach WV Raman and will now have to pick the men’s senior team head coach next month.

The CoA forwarded the case of Raman’s appointment to the Ethics Officer last week because the new BCCI constitution doesn’t provide for ‘ad-hoc panel’. As a result the CAC composition to pick the head coach also remains in limbo with the last date of application for the positions ending on July 30.

“If the previous CAC has to be replaced by this new panel, we need to be completely clear that they are completely clear of conflict of interest. However, there is question mark over Kapil and Shantha, who are directors of the newly-formed Indian Cricketers Association while Kapil also owns a company that supplies floodlights to some state associations,” the BCCI official said.

If Jain raises an objection to the composition of this new CAC, it is likely to delay the coach selection process. There is also ‘conflict of interest’ cloud over the appointment of Vikram Rathour as the batting consultant at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) although his brother-in-law Ashish Kapoor is the junior national selector.

Earlier, Rathour appointment as the Under-19 batting coach was scuttled due to the same concerns.

The CoA are also likely to discuss appointment of electoral officers by the state associations ahead of their elections which need to be completed by September 14 according to a timeline issued by the CoA.