Justice Mukul Mudgal, who was the observer of DDCA since December 2015, had exposed the numerous deficiencies in the association in a report last year Pradeep Gaur / © Getty Images
The Delhi & District Cricket Association will be the first state cricket body directly ordered by a court to change its Articles of Association – i.e. its constitution – and remodel its administrative structures. Until that is done, the association will be run by an administrator appointed by the Delhi High Court: Justice Vikramjit Sen, a former judge of the Supreme Court, was appointed on January 30 and will take charge from February 14.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and Justice Deepa Sharma stated that Sen will replace Justice Mukul Mudgal, who had been appointed observer of DDCA in December 2015.
Sen’s appointment will hold until the required “changes are made to the DDCA’s Articles of Association” and “till such time the directions given in this judgment are implemented and charge is handed over to the newly elected executive committee of the DDCA”. The directive made it Sen’s responsibility to ensure both domestic and international events are “held smoothly”. Importantly, the court said that all the Lodha Committee recommendations approved by the Supreme Court on July 18 last year, will be put into practice before fresh elections could be held at DDCA.
The new DDCA administrator has been asked to call for a meeting of the association’s general body to ensure that the amendment of various parts of the Articles of Association takes place “preferably before the end of March 2017”. The amendments concern proxy voting, a change in the condition of the affiliations of clubs, composition of the sports committee, restrictions on numbers of office bearers and their age and tenure limitations, and the inclusion of a nominee from Chief Controller of Accounts of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi.
The court directed Justice Sen to implement all the recommendations made by Justice Mudgal in his report last July on the workings of the DDCA. In a previous report in January last year, Mudgal, a retired Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, had exposed the numerous “deficiencies” in the association, ranging from lack of transparency, poor record-keeping, long delays in bill payments, defunct sub-committees, mismanagement and rampant ad-hocism.
The court agreed with Mudgal that “it hardly needs to be emphasised that reforms are badly needed” at DDCA. “There appears to be no stability in certain key governance issues or even discernable norms in regard to activities such as accounts and finance, procurement through tendering, a stable selection policy for selectors and players, the terms and conditions applicable to them, etc,” the court said.
The court directed that proxy voting – which Justice Mudgal had called the “bane” of Delhi cricket – would be “impermissible”. The order said the proxy system was “no longer a matter of debate… it is hereby directed that proxy voting is impermissible and the DDCA shall not resort to it, in future elections.” One of the key aspects of the order was the abolishment of the gargantuan sports working committee, which handles all cricketing matters at DDCA, and the creation of a 10-member panel in its place (see sidebar).
The court also directed that going forward all affiliated clubs of DDCA would need to be registered as a society or a not-for-profit agency, and submit audit reports including the funds disbursed to them by the DDCA. Failure to comply would result in loss of affiliation, the court said. It also directed that all administrators would need to meet the eligibility criteria put in place by the Lodha Committee. A nominee of the Chief Controller of Accounts for the NCT of Delhi would be a part of the executive committee.
In his report, Mudgal had recommended that the BCCI should appoint a committee to manage daily administration of DDCA, while a CEO with independent charge could look after financial matters. However, with the BCCI itself being restricted by the Supreme Court, the High Court appointed Justice Sen as an interim caretaker.
The court also ratified all the contracts and appointments that DDCA entered into that were signed by the Mudgal Committee, including the appointment of state selection committees and teams. “Up to the date of this judgment, the contracts entered into as well as the selections of the selectors and the teams shall not be disturbed in any manner whatsoever. Likewise, the expenses undertaken and the binding contracts entered into, under the authority of the Justice Mudgal Committee, are hereby ratified and cannot be called into question by the virtue of this judgment,” the court observed.
The court has asked Justice Sen to appoint an external auditor to carry out DDCA audits for the three years between 2012 and 2015, and submit a detailed report within three months of the order.
Nagraj Gollapudi is a senior assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo