In a bizarre move, the Tripura Cricket Association (TCA) has expanded the size of its managing committee to 45 members, and amended its “term of office” rules to three years for its office bearers and executive committee members. The moves sparked a remark from an office bearer of the Mumbai Cricket Association: “So the executive committee is virtually the Annual General Meeting or Special General Body meeting and after every three years there will be a new 45 member executive committee.”
Last year, the TCA announced that it had adopted the Justice Lodha Committee recommendations in full, but the association, which is not a force in the India’s domestic championship, has altogether misinterpreted the recommendations that have been impressed upon the full members of the BCCI.
These are to have uniform MoA and Rules and Regulation with an “Apex” council with five office bearers (president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer), one representative elected from its ordinary members list, a male and female cricketer each nominated by the Cricket Players Association (CPA) and a representative of the Accountant General of the State. The TCA managing committee comprises of five elected office bearers (president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer); a member each from its 14 affiliated clubs and 18 sub-divisional cricket associations, and five elected from among its 237 Life Members; a male and female player representative; and the nominee of the State Accountant General Office.
‘Loophole’
While the full members of the BCCI have asked the Lodha Committee and the Committee of Administrators (CoA) for clarity on the “cooling off period for Executive Committee members” (who are not defined as office bearers by their association’s bylaws), the TCA has applied in its functioning the “three year cooling off period to the elected managing/executive committee members” also. An official close to the Lodha Committee admitted that there is a “loophole” in the application of the “three year cooling off” period for elected committee members who are not office bearers.
Affected by the amended rule, former TCA managing committee member, Subhash Ghosh, has taken the issue with the CoA. In a letter addressed to the four members of the CoA (Vinod Rai, Ramchandra Guha, Vikram Limaye and Diana Edulji) and the BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, Ghosh has before them placed the following issues:
. the TCA has forcibly implemented the “Cooling Off” for ordinary executive members.
. the TCA has on (February 12, 2017) unilaterally constituted a new committee with five office bearers.
. there was no initiative for bringing in two representatives of the Cricket Players' Association (CPA) and that the CPA has not yet been formed.
. No nominee of the Accountant General was inducted in the committee.
. TCA has also appointed an Ombudsman for a monthly honorarium of Rs. 50,000. The person appointed is a Tripura Civil Service (TCS) officer. He is neither a retired Chief Justice or Judge of High Court.
. An impugned Memorandum & Rules of [Tripura Cricket Association], which is very much inconsistent with what the Justice Lodha Panel recommended and the Hon'ble Supreme Court mandated, made a provision for appointing a person of eminence as Ombudsman.
. The tenure of the previous Executive Committee would have expired on October 18, 2017, but the present power group, being politically motivated, had dissolved the committee nine months in advance without any valid reason, and that this move has been challenged before the Hon'ble High Court of Tripura.
In closing, Ghosh said: “I sincerely hope that you would be kind enough to take stock of the above points and seek acceptable clarification from TCA. The stakeholders of Tripura Cricket are rest assured that BCCI Administrators would question all illegal acts committed by present power group.”
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