CoA demands removal of BCCI office bearers

Photo: AFP

New Delhi: The BCCI courted fresh trouble on Wednesday as they face the prospect of their entire set of office bearers being removed. The Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) on Wednesday sought removal of acting president CK Khanna, acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary and treasurer Aniurudh Chaudhary from their posts for deliberately stonewalling efforts to implement Lodha reforms aimed at restructuring cricket administration, validated by the SC itself.

This plea from CoA comes just seven months after Supreme Court removed then BCCI president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke for creating similar impediments in implementation of Lodha reforms.  

 The CoA has further requested the SC to allow direct functioning of the BCCI by the CoA with the help of CEO Rahul Johri. The CoA, in the fifth status report filed to the SC ahead of their August 18th hearing, also made scathing observations on the board office bearers for deliberately denying access to board CEO --- CoA’s official representative --- to attend meeting and thus prevent the Committee and the court from gaining first hand information about the July 26 SGM’s proceedings. The CoA also came down hard on the functioning of the state associations and board’s fund disbursement policy.  

 CoA has demanded forensic audit of each state association under 3-member committee of a former SC judge on lines of DDCA and Hyderabad to ascertain previously given funds were utilized properly or not. “It's clear state associations have no desire to implement reforms,” the CoA stated in its status report to SC. 

The matter comes up for hearing on August 23 with the SC also set to decide on the two vacancies in the CoA after the resignation of Vikram Limaye and Ramachandra Guha. The Court will also hear response of the Board on difficulties it faced in implementing certain reforms.