The case will be heard by a three-judge tribunal headed by the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana.
Thursday’s hearing marks the first time in more than two years that the Supreme Court will hear the BCCI’s petition, originally filed in December 2019. The board then filed a new petition in April 2020, requesting the court to hear the case urgently last week.
Currently, the cooling off period means that an office holder who has served for two consecutive terms (six years) in a position with a state association or in the BCCI, or a combination of the two, will not be eligible for further election without a cooling off period of three years. run through. During the cooling off period, the person cannot serve in any capacity at both the BCCI and the state level.
In October 2019, a new BCCI administration was elected with Sourav Ganguly as President, Jay Shah as Secretary, Arun Dhumal as Treasurer and Jayesh George as Joint Secretary. Within two months of the takeover, the Ganguly administration moved the court challenging the cooling-off period: It wanted the cooling-off period to come into effect after the office holder had held office for six consecutive years – either a state association or the BCCI, but not a combination of both.
At present, all five BCCI office holders, including Vice President Rajiv Shukla, have held one office or another for six consecutive years, having previously served with their respective state associations before becoming BCCI office holders.
Ganguly was scheduled to begin his cooling off period after July 2020, having started as secretary of the Cricket Association of Bengal in 2014, becoming the association’s president in 2015 and being re-elected in September 2019 before moving to the BCCI moved. .
As for Shah, he was elected joint secretary of the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) in 2014. The JSA’s internal data suggests that Shah’s tenure began on September 8, 2013.
In Shukla’s case, he is ineligible to continue as BCCI official on the grounds that he is a Member of Parliament – under the council’s statutes, a politician cannot serve as an office holder.
The challenge for the current Supreme Court Court, which also includes Judge Krishna Murari and Judge Hima Kohli, is to decide whether the 2018 ruling passed by Judge Dr. DY Chandrachud, one of the most prominent judges in the court who has been part of this case since 2016.
Judge Chandrachud added leniency to the COA’s original cooling off recommendation, but said that “allowing a person to serve as office holder for six years is a long enough period of time to use the experience and knowledge gained in the importance of the game without simultaneously creating a monopoly of power.”
The cooling-off period, Justice Chandrachud said, was necessary because it would serve as a “secure guard” against “establishments of personal interests”, as well as allow for the “concentration of power in a few hands” while encouraging more executives to to make a profit. experience.
“Cooling down should be accepted as a means of preventing a few individuals from viewing the management of cricket as personal territory. The game will be better off without cricket oligopolies,” Justice Chandrachud had written in his verdict.
And that is the basis of a counter filed this week against the BCCI petition by Subramaniam Swamy, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party who heads the Indian government. According to Bar and Bench, an Indian legal website, Swamy said the BCCI request was aimed at “nullifying and destroying” the cooling-off period, “resulting in a monopoly of power in the hand of few individuals”, and “destroying the essence “of the 2018 Supreme Court ruling.”
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo