CAB to conduct AGM after Supreme Court decides on Lodha reforms

The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) on Saturday decided to postpone its Annual General Meeting (AGM), saying it will be held after the Supreme Court hearing of the Justice Lodha recommendations on July 14.

The CAB AGM is generally held at the end of July, but last year also it had to be postponed due to the same reason after the Supreme Court judgment on the Lodha reforms was passed on July 18 last year.

At an emergent meeting involving 75-80 of its 121 affiliated units, president and former India captain Sourav Ganguly apprised all of the prevailing situation regarding some of the Lodha reforms like 'one state, one vote', age and tenure cap for administrators', cooling off periods between successive terms and the size of the senior national selection committee which some of the state associations have objected to.

Hence, the AGM cannot be held until the next hearing at the apex court on July 14.

"The president apprised the members that due to the pending issues before the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, where the Supreme Court has directed the matters to be heard of July 14, the association cannot hold any AGM," CAB legal advisor Ushanath Banerjee told reporters after the half an hour meeting here.

"The association has been advised legally also that in the present scenario, until and unless the amendments directed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court are affected, which are in doubt on number of counts as some issues are still awaiting a call, holding of AGM would be wrongful and illegal," Banerjee added.

In the BCCI's last Special General Meeting (SGM) held in Mumbai on June 26, the state associations failed to adopt the Lodha Committee recommendations despite it being on top of their agenda.

A seven-member committee was formed on the same day to oversee the Lodha reforms . Along with Ganguly, the committee headed by Rajiv Shukla has Naba Bhattacharjee, TC Mathew, Jay Shah, Amitabh Choudhary and Anirudh Chaudhary.

Former Saurashtra Cricket Association secretary Niranan Shah was also included in the committee later. The committee, tasked to identify the 'few critical points' for the general body of the cricket board to consider before they are submitted to the Supreme Court, met on Saturday.

It was learnt from officials who declined to be named that the Supreme Court's stance has "softened" a bit and the issues which have caused a flutter among state associations would be considered.

--IANS

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