CAG files application in Supreme Court to exit BCCI Apex Council

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) have approached the Supreme Court (SC) in order to be relieved from its duty as the nominee to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Apex Council.

The move comes as the CAG feels it’s unable to function as an independent voice within the BCCI as well as carry out financial oversight of the board and its members.

It is believed that the application is based on the observation and experience of its nominees for past 6 months. It says that a different approach would address the ‘oversight better and prays for a limited relief relating to the applicant CAG’.

In the application, accessed by IANS news agency, the CAG informed that they have appointed a representative for BCCI Apex Council and the Indian Premier League (IPL) Governing Council, and till date 18 state associations have requested nominations, for which the CAG has appointed.

The inclusion of the CAG official on the Apex Council, the state associations and the IPL Governing Council, is part of the recommendations made by the RM Lodha Committee, approved by SC order in 2016.

The BCCI Apex Council includes nine members, with CAG official acting as the independent figure. There are five BCCI office-bearers (president, secretary, vice-president, treasurer and joint secretary), a representative appointed by the BCCI general body (states) and two representatives from the Indian Cricketers' Association.

On July 4, CAG representative Alka Rehani Bharadwaj, wrote to the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly to ensure that only ‘eligible’ office bearers would attend the Apex Council meeting next week.

Shah, Ganguly face cooling-off periods from BCCI

The letter was meant for BCCI secretary Jay Shah, who has completed six years as an office-bearer and needs to undertake mandatory three-year cooling off period according to the new BCCI regulations.

Jay Shah is the son of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Even BCCI President Sourav Ganguly needs to undertake this three-year cooling off after he completes his six years as BCCI and Cricket Association of Bengal (previous post) office bearer in August.

"The Apex Council of the BCCI and the Governing Council of the IPL are charged with governance functions, and are required to take management decisions which are administrative in nature, to discharge their duties," the CAG said in the petition as reported by ESPNcricinfo.

"Such management and administrative decisions include deciding fixture of matches, finalisation of cricket calendar for team India, deciding fee of players depending upon their performance and representation of the Board before the International Cricket Council, organising IPL etc. Whereas, the expertise of CAG is in financial audit of institutions to bring about financial transparency, and as such, the current role being played by the CAG nominee in BCCI is completely different from their field of expertise,” the petition added.

Commenting on the plea from CAG, a BCCI official said that the issue was never auditing of accounts.

"The associations face not only its own auditors but also the auditors of the BCCI and are effectively facing two layers of audit already and that is not the issue at all. The issue is that of some people who have emerged as motivated complainants filing false, frivolous, vexatious and misplaced complaints for publicity and who are then used by rival groups within associations as a tool to create nuisance," the official explained to IANS news agency.