Cricket Association of Bihar moves Supreme Court for stay on BCCI polls

The Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) today moved the Supreme Court seeking stay of BCCI election for office bearers scheduled for May 22 and to bar chargesheeted candidates from contesting.

The plea was mentioned before a vacation bench of Justices A M Sapre and Ashok Bhushan which refused to hear it saying it is part-heard matter and regular bench is already hearing it.

Counsel appearing for CAB said that it is an urgent matter as the election is scheduled for May 22 and no prior 21 days’ notice has been given for the elections.

He also sought implementation of the Lodha Committee recommendations under which a candidate, who has been chargesheeted in a case, cannot contest the BCCI election for office bearers.

The apex bench asked the counsel for CAB to mention the matter before vacation Registrar for listing it before another bench noting that it is already being heard by regular bench.

A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur, which is already hearing the matter, had earlier pulled up the BCCI for resisting the Justice R M Lodha-led committee’s recommendation on capping the age of its office bearers to 70 years.

The current proceedings in the apex court are the outcome of the petition filed by CAB through its secretary Aditya Kumar Verma who alleged large scale irregularities.

The apex court had on April 25 pulled up BCCI for “monopolizing” cricket in the country and had said several youngsters “wanting to be Dhonis and Kohlis” are not given equal opportunity if they are not on the right side of the cricket body.

The apex court had appointed senior advocate Gopal Subramanium as amicus curiae in the matter and sought his assistance to explore as to how the recommendations of Justice Lodha committee favouring large-scale structural reforms, which BCCI and other boards have been resisting, could be implemented.