BCCI, CoA sidestep question of Srinivasan's eligibility

Amitabh Choudhary, the acting BCCI secretary, has said it is the prerogative of a state association to nominate a person to the board's special general meeting "as long as it doesn't violate any court order". Choudhary was responding to a question on the eligibility of former BCCI and ICC chief N Srinivasan, who represented the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) at the board's SGM in Mumbai. Srinivasan had attended the state associations' meeting with the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) on Sunday (June 25) as well.

Srinivasan's eligibility has been in question since the TNCA's executive committee nominated him as its representative. In April, the Supreme Court and the CoA had warned that office-bearers disqualified under the Lodha Committee recommendations could not attend BCCI meetings. Subsequently, the court prevented Srinivasan from representing the Indian board in the ICC meetings.

Srinivasan's disqualification at that time was on two counts: he was over 70 years of age and had completed nine years as an office-bearer at both the TNCA and the BCCI, thereby violating the judgment of July 2016, which had approved the recommendations of the Lodha Committee. Veteran administrator Niranjan Shah, who represented the Saurashtra Cricket Association at the SGM, is also disqualified on the same grounds.

Choudhary, however, said he had done his due diligence when it came to examining Srinivasan's eligibility. "A notice for a meeting," he said, "is a notice. And, the notice says that all member units of the BCCI are requested to attend this meeting. As to which individual is chosen to represent a member unit is their discretion, as long as it doesn't violate any court order. That's all that I am supposed to examine, which I did."

The CoA, too, had said the issue of an administrator's eligibility didn't fall under its remit. "That is an issue that the Supreme Court has to discuss. We have not been mandated by the Supreme Court to sit on judgment on a person's eligibility, non-eligibility etc," CoA chairman Vinod Rai said on Saturday. "The attendance register will go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court gets to know about all these things, so we are not here to sit in judgment on people's qualification or disqualification."

A senior administrator from the west zone told ESPNcricinfo that neither Srinivasan nor Shah were currently office-bearers, and hence were eligible to attend the meeting.