BCCI chiefs Ganguly, Jay Shah set to continue as SC posts hearing to January
New Delhi, Dec 9 (UNI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred the hearing for the proposed amendments to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) constitution to the third week of January.
The hearing was important in providing clarity over the terms of BCCI's President Sourav Ganguly and Secretary Jay Shah.
Notably, the terms of Ganguly and Shah have got over according to the BCCI constitution.
While their terms are over, the BCCI has filed an application in the top court, seeking crucial amendments to the Supreme Court-approved constitution, framed by the SC-appointed Lodha Committee, that could see the duo stay on for longer.
With the hearing pushed back, the duo are set to continue until a verdict is reached in the court, Cricbuzz reported.
The BCCI will be having its Annual General Body Meeting (AGM) on December 24, and Ganguly is set to chair that meeting along with Shah in attendance.
The new BCCI constitution makes it mandatory for its office-bearers - president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary, and treasurer - to go into a three-year cooling-off period after being in the chair for six consecutive years, either in the BCCI or its affiliate state associations, or a combination of both.
The person can return for another term of three years after the cooling-off period (a person can be an office-bearer in the BCCI for a maximum of nine years and another nine years in a state association). And this is one of the seven crucial rules, on which the edifice of the new constitution is erected, and which the BCCI wants amended, and that would allow the present office-bearers to continue in the chair.
Since the formation of a new constitution, the BCCI and various state associations had approached the SC with many grievances. In March 2019, the SC appointed PS Narasimha as the amicus curiae to mediate some of the disputes.
On Wednesday, the Apex Court had asked the amicus curiae PS Narasimha to compartmentalize the various Interlocutory Applications (IAs) related to the BCCI and proceeded to deal with them in a phased manner.
Subsequently the recommendations from the amicus curiae were that 25 such IAs could "be disposed off with a liberty to avail appropriate remedies". There were 35 IAs that were deemed infructuous or not relevant anymore while 28 IAs were "successfully mediated" by the amicus Curiae.
However, 14 further IAs that needed contesting including ones with regards to the right to form association and the ones seeking key changes/clarifications to the constitution pertaining to the cooling off period for administrators were pushed to the third week of January.
The Supreme Court is set to go on its winter vacation from December 18.
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