BCCI's seven-member panel is illegal: Aditya Verma

Aditya Verma

The petitioner in the 2013 Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing case, Aditya Verma alleged that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) officials are repeating mistakes by analysing the Lodha Committee recommendations, thereby failing to accept the reforms in toto.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly was named in a seven-member committee yesterday headed by IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla to analyse the contentious Lodha panel reforms.

"Even after the previous BCCI SGM last October, they employed the same tactics when Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke were the Board's president and secretary respectively. After the meeting, the state associations had reservations on some issues and there was no decision. We all know how the Supreme Court showed the door to Thakur and Shirke later," Verma told mid-day yesterday.

Among the other members of the newly-formed panel include TC Mathew (former Kerala CA president), Naba Bhattacharjee (Meghalaya CA secretary), Jay Shah (Gujarat CA secretary), BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary and acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary, who will be the convener.

The Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) secretary Verma also alleged that the BCCI's move to form a new committee is a direct attack on the Committee of Administrators (CoA) head Vinod Rai. "This is just a farce and is contempt of court. Without any agenda how can BCCI form a committee? They need to take the CoA's permission. When the Supreme Court has already formed a committee, how can they form a new committee? This is just an eyewash and another strategy of BCCI to delay their decision.

They are violating the SC order," he added. Verma is gearing up to raise a strong objection to BCCI's latest move in the apex court. "The Supreme Court will re-open on July 3. I am the petitioner and will strongly object this move. I am trying to get in eminent lawyer Harish Salve to fight this case and save BCCI," Verma said.