‘Your role is to supervise, not usurp the administration’: NCA chairman Niranjan Shah tells CoA

The Committee of Administrators’s move to appoint a Chief Operations Officer at the National Cricket Academy has not gone down well with veteran administrator Niranjan Shah, who is the current chairman of the Bengaluru-based body, India Today reported.

Shah has shot off a letter to the CoA raising concerns over the Supreme Court-appointed panel’s decision that came without involving the office-bearers of the BCCI or members of the NCA.

Shah states in the letter that the panel’s role is to “supervise the administration and not to usurp the administration”.

“I would respectfully like to state that there is a marked difference between supervision and actual act of administration,” Shah wrote in the letter.

“The CoA was inter-alia appointed to supervise the administration of the BCCI which is to take place as per the rules and regulations in place, and accordingly also supervise and control the elected office bearers of the BCCI. The intent was for the CoA to supervise the administration and not to usurp the administration,” Shah adds.

The situation came to a head after the CoA held a meeting to appoint Tufan Ghosh as COO after conducting interviews without including Shah or any other officials in the process.

“For some reason unknown to me, it appears that the BCCI has intentionally avoided inviting me to attend and chair the NCA meeting,” he said.

‘Left out intentionally’

Shah alleged that he was left out of proceedings intentionally.

“This comes as quite a surprise to me since neither the plan for the NCA nor this post nor the process was ever discussed in a meeting of the NCA in my presence. I am unaware if the same had been presented to the committee of NCA in my absence...() the NCA is something which I have worked very hard to nurture and promote over the years,” the letter read.

Shah, who was forced to step down as secretary of Saurashtra Cricket Association as per suggestions of the Justice RM Lodha Committee earlier this year, said he felt as though the CoA did not deem him to be qualified for the role. He claimed that if he was not qualified to be an office bearer of the State Association and hence not to be part of the NCA, it holds true in other instances as well.

He also claimed that other individuals who are otherwise disqualified to be office bearers of state associations have been allowed to chair the subcommittees and committees that they are part of.

Shah added that CoA should refrain from operating as a working committee of the BCCI.

“If true, it is shocking to say the least. It is respectfully submitted that no order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court directs the dissolution of any committee of the BCCI leave alone the Working Committee. Neither does the Justice Lodha committee report, nor does the Supreme Court suggest that the CoA must usurp the powers of the working committee,” the letter read.