'Legal and financial problems will arise' - Anirudh Chaudhary warns Vinod Rai on women’s coach selection
BCCI treasurer Anirudh Choudhary has warned CoA chief Vinod Rai of legal and financial issues pertaining to the selection of the National women’s Cricket team coach. WV Raman has been chosen as the coach of the women’s team by a three-member ad-hoc committee constituted by the BCCI.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary has intimated the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai of the problems the selection of Women’s National coach will cause legally and financially. He seemed to have stated so due to another member of the CoA Diana Edulji was not being on-board of the coach selection process.
"Since there is no decision of the CoA in the matter of the selection of the women's coach, the process and an appointment if any in the present facts and circumstances are without jurisdiction and without authority and an appointment for and on behalf of the BCCI. Therefore, who pays for the process? If any payment is made to a candidate from BCCI accounts, who is to be debited for the same?" Chaudhry wrote in a letter accessed by TOI.
Chaudhary also hinted that it would be better to wait till the next hearing of the matter in the Supreme Court and until then hand over the reins of the coaching duty to former coach Ramesh Powar or someone else.
"Would it not be appropriate to wait till Jan 17 (the next date of hearing before the SC) and keep the present matter of coach selection in abeyance till then and have either Ramesh Powar continue or someone else take charge till then? It would avoid unnecessary legal issues."
Earlier Edulji had accused Rai of taking all the decisions by himself and had asked BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and Saba Karim to stop the appointment of the coach since she was not consulted while the formation of the ad-hoc committee for interviewing the candidates. Edulji had also raised question marks over the selection of logistics manager Mayank Parikh who is currently defending conflict of interest allegations. Hinting at the incident, Chaudhry warned Rai of the potential discrepancies in BCCI's audit.
"The execution of either of the decisions by the BCCI's management in such a case is strife with irregularities and any expenditure on such execution on behalf of the Board is irregular and a potential Audit Objection, and a strong one at that. Who would be debited with the amount spent from the Board's coffers on such a decision? From whom will this amount be recovered? Is this financial prudence?
"This also raises a very serious question of whether this is a corrupt practice or no. This present method of decision making which is being followed reflects very poorly on all the people involved and I write this as the Honorary Treasurer to register my protest because we have a duty to the organisation and a duty to the Hon'ble Supreme Court," he wrote.