Rai, head of the Board’s Committee of Administrators, hasn’t responded to a complaint filed by a former staff member against a senior BCCI employee.
Dubai: Who is Aditya Verma? Until recently, he was an unknown official from the unrecognised Cricket Association of Bihar, but in recent times, he has become the most litigious cricket board official of all time.
It is an open secret that he was used to file multiple cases against board officials, and that the lawyers who spoke for him were among the most expensive in the country and paid for by vested interests, but all those suits were heard.
Now, Verma finds himself in the middle of yet another imbroglio, but this time his targets are those who he earlier fought for.
There are allegations that a senior employee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) behaved inappropriately with a female member of his staff, which culminated in her abrupt abdication of office on 12 February.
Further, Verma alleges that these breaches were brought to the notice of Vinod Rai, the head of the Committee of Administrators appointed by the Supreme Court to oversee the clean-up of the system. And yet, the man in charge did nothing to redress the situation.
Also read: Days before MeToo, Vinod Rai was accused of covering up sexual harassment by BCCI colleague
‘Trampling on the dreams and rights of people’
In a third letter written by Verma to Rai, accessed by ThePrint, the language is blunt.
“As I had anticipated, there is no response from you or an action on the various issues raised by me in my last two communications to you dated 14.09.2018 and 15.09.2018. I am still hopeful that there is some semblance of conscience still left in your soul that troubles you when you ignore a genuine cry informing you about actions that trample on the dreams and rights of people who are unable to raise their voice because of pressures being applied on them,” the letter states.
Verma goes on to appeal to “the integrity” in Rai and pleads with him to ensure that “there is no shady activity being swept under the carpet”.
His questions to Rai, however biased or motivated, bear a response from someone who has served the country for years and built a name for himself on exposing malpractice.
“Did it not move you when you came to know that an employee who was working so passionately in preparation for the IPL 2018 season, abruptly resigned with immediate effect on the 12th of February 2018?” Verma asks.
Verma then stipulates that no decision was taken on the matter as Rai was in Singapore at the time, and that the female employee in question was coerced into accepting a settlement of sorts.
“At the risk of repetition, I wish to state that once the employee had given you the complaint, you could not have dealt with it yourself and the only option available to you was to forward the same to the Local Complaints Committee since the BCCI did not have any Internal Complaint Committee then,” he says.
Also read: I’m here to stay and run Indian cricket: Vinod Rai tells BCCI
“It was only that committee that could have even decided to go in for reconciliation efforts. You have violated the provisions of law just so that you can keep your administration ‘controversy-free’ but in doing so you have failed the trust that the Hon’ble Supreme Court placed in you.”
Verma, in his latest missive, which may also go unanswered, puts down some markers. “You (Rai) are called upon to make amends even at this stage and do justice to your role that the Hon’ble Supreme Court has tasked you with,” he writes.
“I would also like to remind you that your otherwise run the risk of being remembered as the person under whose control such actions were ignored or swept under the carpet and let me remind you that omitting to act responsibly i.e. negligence that is willful acts as encouragement to the predators and perpetrators of such acts and it would be disgraceful if a person appointed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court would choose to.”
So, who is Aditya Verma?
Verma is from Chapra, 80 kilometres from Patna. He played cricket at a collegiate level and this landed him a job with Tata through the sports quota. After staying employed for approximately a decade Verma quit, when he felt he was not being adequately appreciated by his superiors.
A known networker and habitual petitioner — often on someone else’s behalf — Verma has worked as press co-ordinator for several politicians including Shatrughan Sinha, Yashwant Sinha and Shekhar Suman, at one time or another.
When Verma, who began his crusade against N. Srinivasan and the previous office bearers of the BCCI standing outside the cricket board offices and seeking meetings with bigwigs, ended up being represented by three of India’s most high-profile lawyers, questions were raised.
After all, it takes serious money to engage the services of the likes of Nalini Chidambaram and Harish Salve. Here was a man who once was stranded at the Mumbai airport because he did not enough money to buy a return ticket to Patna and yet he has the big guns fighting his cause in court. These are the many contradictions of Verma.
This article was originally published on 9 September 2018.