CoA facing problems in implementing conflict of interest guidelines, says member Diana Edulji

Ever since the one-person-one-post clause was incorporated into the BCCI’s constitution by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice RM Lodha panel, the board’s ethics officer Justice DK Jain has served conflict issue notices to several stalwarts of Indian cricket. Edulji, and her colleague Lt Gen Ravi Thodge spoke with past and present cricketers via video call to discuss the problems caused due to the contentious clause.

“All the issues [related to conflict] were discussed – what are the problems being faced by cricketers, what are the problems being faced by us [the administrators] to implement it. It was a vibrant discussion,” Edulji told PTI after the meeting.

Gen Thodge echoed Edulji’s statements.

“There are some genuine difficulties which our cricketers face. We may not agree with certain things but certain things we have to agree. So, those are the issues that we wanted to gather from them and that was the purpose of this meeting. Cricketers are the ones who are conflicted, so we are addressing their issues,” he said.

The major issue faced by the cricketers is pertaining to dual roles – player-commentator, commentator-IPL franchise staff, commentator-administrator-franchise mentor, BCCI post-IPL franchise employee. This is in clear violation of the clause in the new BCCI constitution. 

Edulji said that the meeting attended by Sanjay Manjrekar, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel, Ajit Agarkar, and Rohan Gavaskar had yielded some good results. 

“Good suggestions did come in and we will formulate a white paper and put it to the Amicus who will submit it to the Court. We will sit in our next meeting and discuss all these points. We are trying our level best to see what is best for cricket. We don’t want to hamper anybody but also stay within the rules,” Edulji said.

However, she maintained that as of now, the conflict of interest rules need to be followed in letter and spirit.

“But as of now, conflict of interest rules have to be followed because they are enshrined in the constitution and as and when it will be decided by the Court, the amendments will be made,” Edulji added.

While Sourav Ganguly and Dilip Vengsarkar joined in the discussions via video conferencing, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid and Harbhajan Singh skipped it.