Supreme Court to decide the fate of BCCI President Sourav Ganguly today
On Thursday, the fate of the senior office-bearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Sourav Ganguly, Jay Shah, and Jayesh George will be decided by the Supreme Court. The case has been pending for months and finally, a decision will be taken on whether the trio can continue at their respective positions.
Going by the constitution of the BCCI, which was passed by the Supreme Court back in August 2019, all the trio would now have been on their ‘cooling-off period. The rule suggests that all cricket administrators in a state association or BCCI have to leave their respective positions for three years after holding it for six years at a stretch. Their terms had ended in the middle of 2020.
A two-judge bench headed by Justice L. Nageswara Rao will be hearing the matters of the BCCI on Thursday morning. According to the reports published on the Outlook, both the judges, Justice Rao and Justice Vineet Saran have touted this case as ‘high importance’ and it has been listed as the first case of the day, in spite of the COVID restrictions.
Justice Rao and Justice Saran set to make a decision on Sourav Ganguly’s future as BCCI president
Justice Rao is apparently quite keen to dispose of the BCCI matter. He has previously investigated the betting and match-fixing case in the IPL in 2014. In February this year, he had admonished Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, the BCCI counsel, for repeatedly seeking adjournments.
Justice Rao had said: “We can’t keep adjourning like this. We had adjourned six times. Don’t adjourn … we will not adjourn it… list on March 23.”
The BCCI matter could not be heard as scheduled on March 23. This happened because Justice Rao was busy being a part of the Constitution Bench hearing the Maratha Reservation case. His bench will now be hearing close to 14 petitions, among which most will plea to roll back the direction of the Supreme Court in this matter. This current rule was put in place by the former Chief Justice of India, RM Lodha.
BCCI wants the trio of Ganguly, George, and Shah to continue their stint without any cooling-off period. The Bench has also admitted a contempt petition against Yudhvir Singh, the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association secretary, who is a government official. The constitution doesn’t allow any government official to be involved in BCCI or state association.
Sourav Ganguly had said recently that he will decide on his future once the Supreme Court has a decision for him.
