#MeToo effect? ICC asks BCCI to keep CEO Rahul Johri away from meeting

Hit by an allegation of sexual assault, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) CEO Rahul Johri received a further jolt on Sunday when the International Cricket Council (ICC) reportedly asked the Indian body to not send him for its four-day chief executives' meeting in Singapore starting on October 16.

This came hours after it was reported that BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary has been asked to fly to Singapore on the instructions of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA).

The COA has asked Johri to reply within a week to the allegations of sexual assault made against him by an anonymous person who claimed to be his former colleague.

DNA has learnt that the ICC wanted Johri to refrain from attending the October 16-19 meeting as "sexual misconduct" was also a topic listed for discussion.

"How could someone who has been facing allegations of sexual assault attend a meeting where a similar topic is listed for discussion?" an ICC source told this paper on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, COA chief Vinod Rai turned down Johri's plea to give him more time, a 14-day period, to explain charges levelled by an anonymous former colleague in Discovery Networks, where Johri worked from 2001 to 2016 before taking over as the BCCI CEO in June 2016.