The BCCI elections have been deferred by a day to October 23 owing to both Maharashtra and Haryana going to polls on October 21. In May, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) had finalised October 22 as the election date, but it has now decided to further postpone the already-delayed polls by a day.
The CoA has also pushed back the date by which state associations will need to conduct their elections, from September 28 to October 4.
The CoA has been determined to carry out the BCCI elections, whereby a new set of office bearers will be voted in for the first time as per the new BCCI constitution, which was amended as per the structural reforms recommended by the RM Lodha Committee that had been ratified by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, the CoA had set September 28 as the date for all the state associations (members) to carry out their polls.
The revised date would then allow the members to nominate representatives to take part in the BCCI elections for various positions. The basic eligibility for the members to conduct elections is to amend their constitution in line with the one registered by the BCCI in August 2018. By last week, all the members, barring three, had amended their constitutions and got them approved by the CoA.
Among those who were reluctant was the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), which had reservations both with the Lodha Committee's recommendations as well as the CoA's advisory in September, which spelled out the eligibility rules concerning the tenure of the administrators (councilors) who are part of the members' working/managing/executive committee or are directors.
On September 16, the CoA issued an advisory stating no administrator could serve for more than 9 years - whether solely at the BCCI or at state level or a combination of both - and would need to undergo the three-year cooling-off period after six years in office. The CoA clarified that this would not be applicable for administrators sitting on the cricketing committees such as the technical committee or the cricket advisory committee.
In an emergency hearing on September 20, the Supreme Court accepted the TNCA's plea and said the disqualification norms would only be restricted to the office-bearers and not the administrators.
"We direct that disqualification shall be confined only to those who had held the post of "Office Bearers" of the Cricket Associations," the two-judge bench, comprising Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao, said.
The court also allowed the TNCA to elect an assistant secretary, an office-bearer position not listed by the Lodha Committee, subject to its final order. However, the court asked all the BCCI members to comply with the new BCCI constitution.
On Monday, the CoA filed a counter-plea asking the court to clarify its order only because it feared some members could misinterpret its judgement of last week. According to PTI, the CoA reportedly mentioned in its plea that its order was being "erroneously and mischievously misinterpreted by certain person" as they were trying to override its main judgement delivered in August, 2018 where it had mandated the Lodha Committee recommendations.
Today the court heard the matter again and said all other disqualification criteria remain the same as in its 2018 judgement. In a fresh advisory sent out today, the CoA "directed" the state associations and its electoral officers not to "reamend" the constitution and stick to the eligibility criteria listed earlier. "The State Associations who have not brought their constitutions in line with the BCCI Constitution run the risk of their election results not being recognised," the CoA said in the advisory.