BCCI’s AGM to be postponed – Thakur

The BCCI’s annual general meeting, which was likely to be on September 27, is set to be postponed. Anurag Thakur, the BCCI secretary, said the board had filed a petition seeking clarification from the court about whether N Srinivasan could attend the meeting in his capacity as Tamil Nadu Cricket Association president.

Srinivasan’s presence at the BCCI working committee meeting on August 26 in Kolkata had caused confusion because earlier this year the Supreme Court said he risked being in contempt of court by attending board meetings. Eventually BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya adjourned the working committee meeting sine die.

“As per our legal opinion he [Srinivasan] could not attend the meeting. But he then forced himself to be in the meeting,” Thakur told ESPNcricinfo. “And we did not want any contempt of court. That is why we have filed the petition on Friday and may be in a few days’ time we should get the order.”

Once the court issues clarification, the BCCI will need at least 24 days to hold the AGM: three days’ notice to convene an emergent working committee meeting and then 21 days’ notice for the AGM. If the meeting is postponed again, the BCCI will have to seek permission from the registrar of societies because the board is registered as a society under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act.

“Certain things are not in our hands. This has not happened for the first time. It has happened many times,” Thakur said on the impending postponement. However, Thakur said it would not affect the board’s plans.

In the past few weeks, the supporters in the Srinivasan camp raised concerns about Dalmiya and Thakur being too high-handed and incommunicado, consequently hurting the functioning of the board. “These are all baseless allegations,” Thakur said. “If you look at the work in the last few months it has been very smooth and controversy free. Our only intention is to make cricket controversy free and conflict free.”

Another senior board official said Srinivasan had tactfully put a spanner in the works of the BCCI, first by filing a petition in the Madras High Court to challenge the Lodha committee order to suspend Chennai Super Kings for two years, and then by attending the working committee.

“Many people who have still not yet signed the conflict of interest document, these are the people who are planting these stories. Rest of the 23 or 24 associations have given in writing (their consent). It is only the four or five are left who are raising these issues.”

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