Committee of Administrators chief Vinod Rai on Sunday said his panel never found any conflict of interest in having a Kapil Dev-led Cricket Advisory Committee that formed to appoint the head coach of the men’s team after the World Cup.
BCCI Ethics Officer Retd Justice DK Jain has issued notices to Kapil and fellow CAC members Shantha Rangaswamy and Anshuman Gaekwad for being directors of the newly-formed Indian Cricketers Association.
However, Rangaswamy has tendered her resignation after being served a conflict of interest notice on a complaint filed by Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association life member Sanjeev Gupta.
“We appointed the CAC as an ad-hoc body to specifically appoint the head coach of the men’s national team. We as COA found that there was no Conflict of Interest,” Rai told PTI.
It is understood that the CAC no longer exists after Ravi Shastri was reappointed as the head coach.
However, when Rai was asked about Jain’s order, he refused to make any comment.
“The Ethics Officer’s position is a quasi-judicial one. I am in no position to pre-empt what order he will pass and neither am I going to do that. I just said that we as CoA never felt that Kapil, Shantha or Anshuman were conflicted,” the former CAG said.
It remains to be seen if CAC is non-existent, will Dev and Gaekwad reply to the notice or appear for deposition before Jain.
“I have other plans so have decided to move on. The CAC was anyway meeting once in a year or one in two years so I did not understand the conflict,” Rangaswamy told PTI earlier in the day.
“It was an honour to be on the CAC committee. It will be tough to find suitable former cricketers for any administrative role in the current scenario (conflict of interest). [From the ICA] I would have resigned anyway before the elections were held. So it was a matter of time,” she added.
As per the BCCI constitution, no individual can hold more than one post at the same time. In the complaint, Gupta has claimed that the CAC members don multiple cricketing roles.
He wrote that 1983 World Cup winning captain Dev is conflicted as he is a commentator, owner of a floodlight company, member of Indian Cricketers Association, besides his CAC role.
Likewise, Gupta alleged that Gaekwad too is conflicted as he owns an academy and is a member of BCCI’s Affiliation Committee.
Rangaswamy is alleged to be conflicted because of her role with the CAC and ICA.
The CAC had also picked the women’s head coach WV Raman in December but at that time, it was an ad-hoc committee.
Shastri was a re-appointed for a two-year period, ending with the 2021 T20 World Cup in India. This is Shastri’s fourth stint with the national team, having served briefly as the cricket manager (2007 tour of Bangladesh), team director (2014-2016) and head coach (2017-2019).
In another interview to Sportstar, Rai also rubbished reports that Shastri’s reappointment could be under threat if CAC was found to have a conflict of interest.
(With PTI inputs)
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