New Delhi: The Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) and 20 District Cricket Associations (DCAs) of the state have moved the Supreme Court, raising objections to former apex court judge Justice L.N. Rao’s recommendations, which include a fixed three-year-tenure for the Ombudsman.
In August last year, a bench of justices J.B. Pardiwala and K.V. Vishwanathan had appointed Justice Rao as the Ombudsman of the BCA. This followed an appeal by Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB)—an independent sports body—on the governance and functioning of the BCA.
After hearing various DCAs in Bihar, Justice Rao submitted his report to the Supreme Court in February this year. He then stepped down from the post, citing personal commitments. Former apex court judge Justice Deepak Gupta was appointed Ombudsman earlier this month, after two other court appointees—former Supreme Court judges Justice A.S. Oka and Justice Hrishikesh Roy expressed their inability to take up the job.
The BCA’s affidavit, filed in response to Justice Rao’s recommendations, opposed the suggestion that the Ombudsman should have a three-year tenure in office and a strict timeline should be fixed to adjudicate complaints.
On the tenure point, the BCA argued it contradicts the existing rules governing the association’s functioning. Moreover, such a recommendation exceeds the jurisdiction of an Ombudsman, who, the body said, cannot alter the tenure of terms of the office. The rules confine the Ombudsman to grievance redressal, and do not confer any amending power.
On strict timelines to decide complaints, the BCA explained the rules that deal with the issue of grievance redressal are based on the Supreme Court judgement of 2018 that had approved the constitution of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)–cricket’s parent body.
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The BCA has also taken exception to Justice Rao’s advice to appoint an administration to conduct verification of all DCAs, after which BCA’s electoral college be recalibrated to conduct fresh elections to all the district and state-level cricket bodies.
As per the BCA, its rules reserve election-related questions for the electoral officer whose decision is final and conclusive on electoral rolls, nominations and candidature. This, it added, is in terms of BCCI’s constitution that was approved by the top court in 2018.
The state cricket body also found the Ombudsman’s recommendation to direct measures concerning conflict of interest and ethics-related matters as usurpation of jurisdiction of an independent constitutional office. Overall, the board said, the measures recommended in the Ombudsman’s report are impermissible under the BCA’s constitution. It even claimed the recommendations rest on unadjudicated allegations.
The board has also sought a joint hearing of the present dispute involving it with the matter related to the BCCI. Though a final decision was delivered in the latter in 2018, various applications are regularly filed by different state cricket bodies due to internal rifts within them.
The BCA said its case should be placed before the bench that is hearing the main BCCI case to avoid parallel and potentially inconsistent proceedings and directions.
The 20 DCAs before the top court have complained against the Ombudsman for preparing its report without considering their representation and perspective with regard to allegations of misgovernance in other cricket bodies of the state.
While these associations did not have any grievance regarding the conduct of the elections in BCA, there were no complaints against them as well. In their common application to the Ombudsman, the associations had specifically highlighted that certain complaints against BCA did not represent the position of the majority functioning within the fold of the main state cricket body.
They have requested the top court to hear them before passing any orders on the application alleging corrupt practices in last year’s election to the BCA.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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