IPL petitioner Aditya Verma says he will appeal to Supreme Court to exempt Sourav Ganguly from cooling-off period

The petitioner of the 2013 IPL spot-fixing case, Aditya Verma, has stated that he will appeal to the Supreme Court to exempt BCCI president Sourav Ganguly from his cooling-off period which is set to begin come July.

The new laws put in place by the BCCI are based on justice RM Lodha committee's reforms, according to which any person who has been part of the BCCI, as well as the state office for a sustained period of six years, will have a serve a mandatory cooling-off period of three years.

Ganguly served as a former Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) joint secretary and went on to later serve as president has had approximately nine months in the BCCI office.

Speaking to PTI on Monday, Verma said,

"Being the original petitioner on whose PIL the whole constitutional revamp happened, I have decided to file a plea that apex court should let Sourav Ganguly and his team (secretary Jay Shah in this case) continue for a term of three years."

Jay Shah has served as the secretary of Gujarat Cricket Association for over five years now and he too is set to go into the cooling-off period.

However, Verma goes on to explain his reasoning behind the appeal. He noted two primary reasons and began,

"My entire intention was to ensure BCCI has a transparent functioning. If a person of Sourav's stature can't complete his term, then what's the use?"

The second reason he stated had to do with giving Ganguly and his team the time that they need to implement their system. Verma continued,

"The BCCI had been completely mismanaged by the Committee of Administrators (CoA) for nearly three years. Any person coming in charge needs time to put a system in place. Ganguly and his team must be given that time."

He added,

"If you look at the current scenario. There is a complete lockdown in the country due to COVID-19 pandemic. Supposedly we lose two months of activity, it is unfair on both Ganguly and Shah that they are not given a fair chance to set the house in order. That will be my plea."