Ignored by Vinod Rai, sulking Diana Edulji to approach amicus curiae

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA) chief Vinod Rai has once again failed to take other member Diana Edulji on board while making a plea before the apex court on clarifying on earlier orders along with pushing the dates of elections back due to assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.

DNA has reliably learnt that though Rai consulted the third member of the COA, Lt Gen Ravi Thodge, before approaching SC for its latest September 20 orders clarifying the rules for disqualification, he ignored former Indian women's skipper Edulji like many other times in the past.

The Rai-Edulji spat began soon after her demands of conducting a fair inquiry into alleged sexual harassment charges against BCCI CEO Rahul Johri earlier this year was ignored outrightly.

Rai has once again failed to get the backing of amicus curiae PS Narsimha, who is now being authorised by apex court to deal with state cricket associations instead of the COA.

Despite this, COA issued an advisory on Tuesday evening to extend the state body elections till October 4 while the date of the BCCI election has now been moved from October 22 to October 23.

"The date of BCCI election is extended by one day in view of the voting in the Legislative Assembly elections in the states of Maharashtra and Haryana on 21st October, 2019. Accordingly, the election date for BCCI stands postponed to 23rd October, 2019," a BCCI statement clarified.

The reasons to extend BCCI elections by a day was well taken by the board members, what has invited the wrath of senior officials is the necessity to extend date of state elections.

"On September 20, the hon'ble court has given powers to amicus curiae to waive off election notice period, if necessary, from 21 days to three days. What was the need for COA to extend the date now is something that is bothering all of us. It looks as if Vinod Rai has made it a personal fight with some chosen associations who were opposing his style of functioning all these years," was how a BCCI official protested.

It has been reliably learnt that Edulji has now decided to apprise two other members of COA regarding her concerns and also take up the matter with amicus curiae.

On the other hand, Rai is relieved that his petition seeking clarification on the permission granted to the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) to hold elections, has been admitted.

"The apex court took cognisance of the fact that some state units are misinterpreting the order mischievously on 'disqualification being confined to office-bearers only'. Many felt that 'it meant that the 70-year clause (age cap), non-Indian passport holder clause have been done away with', which is not the case," Rai said on Tuesday.

This paper has already reported that Rai sought clarification on two accounts – How can TNCA hold elections for the post of Assistant Secretary and whether the disqualification shall only be confined to those who had held the post of office-bearers of state or in BCCI – from the apex court.

This is another matter that SC orders of September 20 were clear on both the accounts. While maintaining that only TNCA and Haryana state associations have failed to comply with the new BCCI constitution, COA has gone a step ahead and directed the state associations not to re-amend their constitutions which were already approved by the committee.

"Court has clearly asked all states to comply with new constitution or face the disqualification and action under law, COA has been unnecessarily trying to create a confusion in the minds of hon'ble judges that some states are deliberately not following the orders and thus be kept out of BCCI voting rolls," added a senior official.