The Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) in India is a place that abounds with ironies. Long after the Supreme Court (SC) took up the near-impossible task of cleaning the Augean stables of the cricketing body, instances of administrative mismanagement are still aplenty within the organisation. How else can one explain the fact that Gagan Khoda and Jatin Paranjpe, two senior national selectors who were removed in January this year from the selection panel continue to be paid in full? It is not just these two who are merrily riding the gravy train. Two other junior selectors have also been extended this privilege.
Meanwhile, BCCI continues to look the other way and hasn’t issued any letter of termination for these four. Worryingly, the costs involved are not paltry. A senior selector takes home a neat Rs 60 lakh a year, while a junior selector pockets a handsome Rs 40 lakh a year. This state of affairs is a product of the recalcitrant attitude BCCI has adopted against the Committee of Administrators (COA) appointed by the SC to clean out vested interests from controlling the game. The two national selectors were sacked early this year as the Lodha panel report clearly specifies that only former test cricketers are qualified to be national selectors.
The matter cropped up recently as payments of salaries to BCCI staffers was getting delayed due to the ongoing hearing in the SC. In the fitness of things, the COA, then, decided to clear all payments till September 2017. Subsequently, it was BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry who cited the decision taken in the last AGM of BCCI to continue paying these selectors till the next AGM. Chaudhry continues to argue that since no decision has been taken by the SC regarding the AGM, any decision taken in the last AGM continues to be legally kosher. Meanwhile, wasteful expenditure of funds continues.
