Put election on hold, SC panel tells KSCA

Elections to the Karnataka State Cricket Association scheduled for next month have run into rough weather. This is because the Supreme Court committee, entrusted with the job of implementing the Justice Lodha panel’s recommendations, directed the state body not to go ahead with the poll process.

The secretary Brijesh Patel-led incumbent regime at the KSCA had decided to seek a re-election on August 7. In a communique issued on Wednesday evening, secretary of the apex court committee Gopal Sankaranarayanan instructed the KSCA to put on hold the elections and all other proceedings, pending further direction. A copy of the communication has been also sent to the BCCI officials.

Private complaint
The missive comes following a private complaint that asked the Supreme Court committee to restrain KSCA officials from going ahead with the elections in the light of the apex court accepting the Lodha Committee’s recommendations.

“As you are aware, the Supreme Court has by way of its judgment dated 18.7.2016 charged this committee with supervising the implementation of the transition from the extant rules to those approved by the court.

“In this regard, and in pursuance of the directions of the Supreme Court, the committee directs that all elections and other proceedings attendant thereto be placed on hold, pending further directions from this committee. No further proceedings may be taken in this regard,” the correspondence sent to the KSCA secretary and other officials stated.

Patel had insisted on going ahead with the proposed polls the day the apex court upheld the Lodha panel’s report, while maintaining that the orders are usually prospective.

According to the Lodha panel’s recommendations, the BCCI has been asked to enforce the 70-year age cap for the office bearers.

The panel also recommended not more than three three-year terms in  any capacity; and a cooling-off period of one term between tenures. If these changes are retrospective, it would mean an end to Brijesh’s innings as an administrator. The former India batsman is at the end of his fifth term as an office-bearer, a cumulative period of 15 years.

Most of the state associations were under the impression that the panel’s recommendations will have to be first implemented by the BCCI which then will guide them in adopting the same, a process they hoped would take at least one and a half years. The Supreme Court has given the BCCI a maximum of six months to implement the Lodha panel’s report.

In an interview to a website on Wednesday, Sankaranarayanan, however, dismissed their theory saying the recommendations will have to be carried out by both the BCCI and the state associations simultaneously.

The secretary has also warned that it would amount to contempt of court if the state associations take steps that are “inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the committee’s bylaws which have been approved by the court.”

The directive effectively means that the elections to the Cricket Association of Bengal, scheduled for July 31, too, will have to be put on hold.Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association’s polls on Tuesday, where state minister Imran Raza Ansari was elected  president, now stand null and void.