Here’s why BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry is in spotlight

The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) case till February 23 but not before placing it on record that the sixth status report by Committee of Administrators (COA) has been filed before it.

Going through the status report filed by Vinod Rai-led COA, one thing is clear that everything in BCCI is fine except for one man, Anirudh Chaudhry, who has been identified as the hurdle in the process of implementing the recommendations of Justice Lodha panel.

Incidentally, Chaudhry was at the heart of a storm during the last hearing on November 29 when it was brought to SC notice, by filing separate affidavits, that “the Haryana strong man has issued death threats to BCCI CFO, Santosh Rangnekar”.

DNA has emails and documents in its possession that raise questions over why has Chaudhry been in the firing line of the entire BCCI top brass? Is it because he was raising pertinent issues which has made the BCCI officials uneasy?

It is no secret within the BCCI set up that Chaudhry is the most trusted man of former BCCI president N Srinivasan. But the big question is why has Chaudhry agreed to sign financial documents for the year 2016-17 “under protest”?

Going through the various emails in possession of this paper, it has emerged that Chaudhry only refused to sign certain declarations because it was not passed by the BCCI’s working committee (WC), as has been the norm.

During the BCCI officials meeting with COA on November 21, 2017, the minutes of which show that Rai had asked why the three officials (acting president, secretary and treasurer) had not signed the financial documents.

Chaudhry then brought it to Rai’s notice that accounts are normally signed after being cleared by the BCCI WC.

And since it has not been disbanded by SC, he was obviously asking for a WC meeting to be called.

According to a source, Rai overruled his objection and said that “COA is acting as a WC”.  Chaudhry then requested Rai to give him a direction to sign.

“I disagree with you that there is no working committee. However, since you are the COA and you have passed the accounts, I will sign the accounts,” Chaudhry subsequently signed the documents “under protest”.

Rai is said to have then assured Chaudhry that his protest will be duly mentioned in the minutes of the meeting.

Though the BCCI treasurer  signed on financial accounts, he informed the CFO that he will sign the declaration and confirmation given to the auditor only after going through them.

Chaudhry finally signed the entire bunch of documents on January 13, but not before making his protest being taken into record.

Freebies by CFO Chaudhry’s tussle with  Rangnekar is also well documented in the BCCI records.

During former BCCI president Anurag Thakur’s tenure, it was brought to Chaudhry’s notice that Rangnekar had been distributing memorabilia — signed T-shirts, bats and other cricketing items kept in BCCI’s head office for upcoming cricket museum — allegedly to various income tax officials.

DNA has access to an official email which a BCCI staffer wrote on October 2016, bringing this matter to the notice of all. The email was even passed on to the auditor.

The records also show that Chaudhry raised the issue of CEO Johri being given a premature increment and that, too, without the conditions for the same having been met. He has also mentioned this in his letter of protest to COA.

The COA agreed to raise Johri’s salary even before the completion of his full year with effect from April 1, 2017.

Going by Chaudhry’s objection, the CEO contract mentions that 0.5 per cent of the incremental income to BCCI out of the efforts of the executives up to a maximum of Rs 1 crore in the first year was to have been the increment.

Here, a flat 15 per cent of the increment was given by COA despite the fact that “the contract doesn’t provide for any such increase”.