The BCCI suffered a setback after the Supreme Court on Wednesday referred the matters related to India’s cricketing board, including amending its constitution to do away with the cooling-off period, to a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud. (More Cricket News)
The verdict on Wednesday means the futures of Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah as BCCI president and secretary respectively hang by a thread, who have already overstayed. The BCCI last month moved to Supreme Court seeking direction to allow Ganguly and Shah to have another term at office.
The bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana and also comprising Justices Hima Kohli and C T Ravikumar, observed that Justices Misra and Khanwilkar have since retired.
“Now, Justice Misra and Justice Khanwilkar are not there. I will list it before Justice Chandrachud and two more judges,” the CJI said. The ball will now be in Justice Chandrachud’s court, who was the man to approve the new BCCI constitution.
It's worth noting that, the earlier judgement on BCCI matters was passed by a bench comprising then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and Chandrachud.
On July 21, the apex court had appointed senior advocate Maninder Singh as an amicus curiae to assist it in the BCCI matters and had posted the hearing on the plea of the cricket body for amending its constitution concerning tenure of office bearers.
According to the Lodha committee recommendations, the Indian board mandated a three-year cooling off period after six years in office at the state level or the BCCI. When Ganguly and Shah joined the BCCI in 2019, they both had 10 months of office left according to the new constitution.
A former India captain, Ganguly came into administration through Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) when he started as a secretary in 2014. However, after the death of Jagmohan Dalmiya, Ganguly took over as CAB president. He was re-elected in September 2019 before moving to BCCI.
On the other hand, Shah served as the joint secretary of the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) from 2014 and entered BCCI office in 2019.
