CoA won't offer opinion in Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman conflict issue

Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman

In a change of stance, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) in their Saturday's meeting in New Delhi decided not to provide any opinion to the ethics officer Justice DK Jain when he takes up the conflict of interest complaints against Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman. mid-day has learnt that the CoA will refrain from opining in Tendulkar and Laxman's case and only provide the facts in the matter if asked for by the ethics officer.

In Sourav Ganguly's conflict of interest case, BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, representing the CoA, had emailed Justice Jain to "allow" Ganguly to continue his role as advisor of Delhi Capitals IPL team if he makes "full disclosures".

No interference
A BCCI source said the CoA discussed the conflict of interest issue and decided to not "interfere" in ethics officer's scope of work. "They unanimously felt that the ethics officer must carry out his work independently and there should be no interference. They will only provide the facts that Tendulkar and Laxman are a part of the Cricket Advisory Committee [CAC] and the IPL teams. It is up to the ethics officer to decide whether they are conflicted or not," said a source.

The CoA's change in stance comes after the complainant Sanjeev Gupta, a life member of the MPCA, had recently emailed the BCCI, highlighting that "In any other rule/s of the BCCI constitution [that the] BCCI Management/Apex Council/BCCI Office Bearer or [the] BCCI CEO have any jurisdiction to be [a] part of any proceedings initiated by the Respected BCCI Ethics Officer." mid-day was the first to report on the alleged conflict of interest complaint filed against Tendulkar and Laxman in its April 20 edition. The CoA has also decided to ask the Ombudsman and ethics officer to review the controversial appointment of women's coach WV Raman.

Arjuna awards
The BCCI has decided to nominate Mohd Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Poonam Yadav for the Arjuna award. The BCCI also reportedly decided to reschedule the timings of the IPL playoffs by half-an-hour due to the dew factor and a request from the host broadcaster.

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