HCA kept telling the apex court how implementation of over 70-year-old age restriction will rob it of availing the services of "India's finest administrator" Ranbir Singh Mahendra.
The Supreme Court on Monday slammed the Haryana Cricket Association (HCA) for seeking to trivialise justice RM Lodha panel's recommendations concerning reforming the cricket administration in the country.
The special bench comprising chief justice TS Thakur and justice FMI Kalifulla told HCA's senior counsel Puneet Bali that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its state units should not treat the panel's report as proposals that could be "trashed" by them.
HCA kept telling the apex court how implementation of over 70-year-old age restriction will rob it of availing the services of "India's finest administrator" Ranbir Singh Mahendra.
Mahendra had defeated Sharad Pawar by one vote in 2004 to become president of BCCI.
HCA counsel submitted before the court that its secretary Anirudh Chaudhry — son of Mahendra — had not been heard by justice Lodha panel.
Chaudhary was co-ordinator of justice Lodha panel in his capacity as BCCI treasurer. Chaudhary, along with president Jagmohan Dalmiya and secretary Anurag Thakur, was called by the committee to depose on April 8, 2015 in a south Mumbai hotel.
However, none of them turned up that day. Lodha panel then sent them 87 questions to all the stake holders in BCCI. It's a different matter that HCA chose to ignore that too. Also, being co-ordinator of justice Lodha panel, Chaudhary had a chance to submit his suggestions any time during the long process.
'Emergency capture'
What Chaudhary did not tell the special bench is how allegedly "HCA was captured by his grandfather Bansi Lal during the 1975 Emergency period".
Reportedly one fine day, the once powerful politician in Haryana decided to dethrone the then HCA president ML Jain to commence his family's innings there.
Chaudhary also did not tell the apex court that "not a single cricketer of repute has ever been allowed to become a member of HCA".
How can anyone forget the infamous incident during the 1994 annual general meeting of HCA in Chandigarh where India's greatest all-rounder Kapil Dev, along with a host of other cricketers --- both national and international, were humiliated by his father's (Mahendra) coterie.
Chaudhary should also have told the court about how in 1992, then India speedster Chetan Sharma was forced to leave Haryana and play for Bengal after he was "dropped" from the North Zone squad at the behest of his father.
Cricket followers in Haryana will hardly forget the summer of 1997 when Sharma, after his brief stint in Bengal, decided to come back to his home state. Having a distinction of playing for India for over a decade (23 Tests and 68 One-dayers) and after taking 433 first class wickets combined with more than 5000 runs, Sharma was first made to play the district tournament before appearing for Ranji Trophy trials.
Being a cricketer, Sharma accepted all this but Mahendra went a step ahead to make him an example for other cricketers in his 'kingdom'.
"I was not even named in the list of 50 probables announced for the Ranji camp after playing nearly 22 years for Haryana and 10 years for India. And this too when I was only 31-years old," Sharma told dna on Monday.
HCA's senior counsel Bali probably had no courage to ask the details of state cricket history because his son Treyaksh Bali has been representing Haryana junior teams.
Treyaksh led Haryana Under-16 team in 2015-16 season without much to show in his score-sheet.
He was also part of Haryana's U-19 team.
HCA had no answer to apex Court's query that despite getting well over Rs 100 crores since 2010 why "no international stadium has been built in Haryana?"
Haryana has only one stadium to show and that too built near Rohtak (Lahli), which cannot be counted as of international standards.
dna's query has revealed that out of these over Rs 100 crore that HCA got from BCCI, only a paltry amount of Rs 1 lakh per year (four district associations confirmed) has been given to 21 district cricket associations, as their share.
The matter has now been posted for Tuesday when court appointed amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium will make his presentation.
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