Vinod Rai: Killer of Idealism

Former police officer Neeraj Kumar’s A Cop in Cricket accuses the former Comptroller and Auditor General of inaction against corruption in the sport and for playing a dubious role in the wake of sexual harassment allegations

Former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai became a household name with his audit reports accusing the Manmohan Singh government of causing ‘notional’ losses of an extraordinary magnitude to the state exchequer through its allocation policy of 2G spectrum and coal mining licences, and in conducting the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Rai defended his methodology of calculating losses against severe criticism. Yet, inexplicably, the man hailed as a courageous crusader shied away from rooting out 
corruption from cricket.

Ostensibly, Rai’s past prompted the Supreme Court, in January 2017, to make him the Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief to reform the Indian Cricket Board, or BCCI, which was reeling under the 2013 spot-fixing scandal. Two of the three other CoA members—Ramachandra Guha and Vikram Limaye—resigned within months of their appointment, leaving Diana Edulji and Rai to reform Indian cricket. Rahul Johri was the BCCI’s CEO; its Anti-Coruption Unit was under Delhi’s former Commissioner of Police, Neeraj Kumar. 

Appointed in May 2015 for three years, Kumar, as controversial as he was renowned for his investigations, has written A Cop in Cricket, in which he accuses Rai of inaction on corruption reports he filed. Take Haryana’s Mahendragarh District Cricket Association, whose secretary’s factotum was accused of demanding sexual favours from cricketers for being included in its team. Kumar sent the inquiry report to Rai and Johri, and often reminded them about it. Yet, Kumar writes, they would, feigning ignorance, say, “We don’t recall having seen your report.” 

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In December 2017, The Sun, a British tabloid, caught on camera two Indians bragging that they could rig Australian league matches. Johri wrote to Kumar saying media reports regarding BCCI’s “persons of interest” were “alarming.” And this, after Kumar had been trying to get BCCI officials and the  “CoA…invested in anti-corruption activities for months, to little effect.”

In October 2017, the Maharashtra police refused to provide security for two matches involving New Zealand, saying they had not been paid for providing the service. The BCCI was to defray the cost as the venue was the Barbourne Stadium, which the Cricket Club of India (CCI) owns. This point the CCI made in its letter to Johri. The police’s refusal had Johri ask Kumar for an explanation. Kumar pointed out it was Johri who had not responded to the CCI’s letter. Johri shot back, “Please stop blaming people and resolve the issue.” Kumar riposted: “I have been putting up with your discourteous behaviour… Don’t expect me to take it lying down.” 

Kumar didn’t. When Kumar apprised Rai about the CCI issue, the latter said, “Rahul suffers from an acute inferiority complex… I will caution him suitably.” Yet, at the CoA meeting hours later, Rai, chameleon-like, asked Kumar to explain the slip-up. Stunned, Kumar pointed to Johri’s dereliction of duty—and then walked out of 
the meeting. 

When a BCCI woman employee accused Johri of sexual harassment, in February 2018, Rai and Edulji, after hearing her, said they would initiate disciplinary action against Johri. Days later, when Kumar asked Rai about the complaint, he said he had nothing in writing from the woman. Kumar persuaded her to file a complaint. Shockingly, it was not referred to the internal complaints committee. The woman withdrew the complaint after a teary apology from Johri, an apology Edulji claimed was tendered because of her.

Months later, another woman accused Johri of sexual harassment during the days they were in Discovery Channel. Since Johri’s contract provided for summary sacking in case he tarnished the BCCI’s reputation, Edulji favoured such a measure. Initially agreeable, Rai changed his mind. A three-member inquiry committee was formed, although Kumar writes that nobody knew who identified and chose them. No longer with the Board, Kumar offered to depose before the committee, which futilely tried to discourage him, asking him to demonstrate his bona fides and locus standi in the case! Johri was let off. 

As for Rai playing “father” to Johri, Kumar cites the “speculation in the BCCI” that “Johri was close to a powerful central minister who took a keen interest…in the BCCI.” Ramachandra Guha, in his The Commonwealth of Cricket, has pitilessly detailed Rai’s lack of zeal to alter the status quo at the BCCI—that is, not do anything against the oligarchy ruling Indian cricket. Guha says, “The return to the status quo ante in the BCCI was closely supervised… by Amit Shah…” 

A special court, in December 2017, acquitted the 2G scam accused, among whom was former Union mister A Raja, who then said Rai was a “contract killer hired to kill” the Manmohan Singh government. In 2021, Rai filed an affidavit in the court saying he had been “factually incorrect” in naming Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam as one of the MPs who pressured him to not mention Manmohan Singh in his 2G 
scam report. 

After reading A Cop in Cricket, citizens will likely think of Rai as a footloose killer of idealism, for his crusade against corruption palpably lacked consistency. Last checked, the Reserve Bank of India approved, in 2002, the appointment of Rai as an independent chairman of the Unity Bank, which took over the failed Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank.

The writer is a senior journalist

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