The BCCI working committee, which met last week, has set March 2 as the date for the much-awaited Annual General Meeting (AGM) which was deferred numerous times due to the IPL spot-fixing case. The AGM will be held in Chennai on March 2, according to a release. The meeting, attended by N Srinivasan in his capacity as Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) president, discussed the implications of the Supreme Court judgment and decided to act as per legal advice.
The meeting has been held in the wake of the apex court order on January 22, which stated that the BCCI will have to hold its AGM-cum-elections within six weeks. Besides, Srinivasan, president in exile, has been told by the SC that he won't be able to stand for presidential elections unless he completely dissociated himself from the India Cements-owned Chennai Super Kings.
Members expressed their objection to this because removal of the autonomy of the Board could lead to lot of complications including matters pertaining to the Reserve Bank of India when it comes to forex transactions of the Board.
Legal action against Verma likely
The working committee members have taken a unanimous stand of taking legal recourse against Aditya Verma, secretary of the unrecognized Cricket Association of Bihar, for “spreading baseless rumours” against Srinivasan and Co. “A working committee member, during the meeting, raised concerns about constant unsubstantiated claims made by Aditya Verma and wanted working committee members to take due cognizance of the matter.” The BCCI is planning legal action against Verma, who has been spreading rumours about Srinivasan as well as raising claims of conflict of interest against Shivlal Yadav and Rajiv Shukla,” a senior BCCI member present at the meeting said.
Srinivasan was vocal on the allegations being made against him and BCCI by former presidents. “Srini himself raised the issue of Shivlal's alleged conflict of interest. He said “Verma stated that Shivlal's son - Arjun Yadav -works in my company which is false. One ex-president went to Mudgal Commission and reported that IPL CEO Sundar Raman is my relative which isn't true either,'” the source mentioned.
Another important decision taken was to raise the monthly gratis scheme for former cricketers by 50 per cent subject to a maximum of Rs 50,000 per month effective from January this year.
