The Supreme Court has provided relief to the senior BCCI officials Jay Shah and Sourav Ganguly, allowing them to enter for re-election to the Board at the next annual general body meeting after India's apex court verbally agreed to amend the constitution. This amendment will allow the office-bearers to stay in power for two consecutive terms before their cooling-off period.
BCCI President Sourav Ganguly and Secretary Jay Shah have been in power since 2019.
The new amendments allow an individual to also stand for elections in the state association if two have terms already completed in the BCCI.
To simplify the process, anyone standing for the elections can first serve two consecutive terms of three years each in the state association and can then directly become an elected member of the BCCI committee for two more consecutive terms. This means that a person can stay in power for a total of 12 years (state + BCCI) straight before the cooling off-period kicks in.
The official order for the Supreme Court is slated to come out on Thursday, September 15.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli said that an office bearer can have continuous tenure of 12 years which includes six years in State Association and six years in BCCI before the cooling-off period of three years triggers.
The bench said that an office bearer can serve on a particular post for two consecutive terms, both at the BCCI and the State Association level, after which he would have to serve three years cooling-off period.
"The purpose of the cooling-off period is not to create undesirable monopolies", the bench said.
The top court's order came on the Board's plea seeking to amend its constitution concerning the tenure of its office bearers including its President Sourav Ganguly and Secretary Jay Shah by doing away with the mandatory cooling-off period between tenures of office bearers across state cricket associations and the BCCI.
The BCCI, in its proposed amendment, has sought the abolition of a cooling-off period for its office bearers which would enable Ganguly and Shah to continue in office as President and Secretary despite them having completed six years at respective state cricket associations.
Earlier, the Justice R M Lodha-led committee had recommended reforms in the BCCI which have been accepted by the top court.
The constitution of the BCCI, which was earlier approved by the top court, stipulates a mandatory three-year cooling-off period for anyone who had served two consecutive terms of three years each in the state cricket association or the BCCI.
While Ganguly was an office bearer in the Cricket Association of Bengal, Shah had served in the Gujarat Cricket Association.
