COA drafts new BCCI constitution, to be submitted in court before September 19

Courtesy: PTI

New Delhi: The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA) on Friday confirmed that a new constitution of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been drafted.

Vinod Rai, head of COA, said that the same will be submitted to the apex court before September 19. He, however, revealed that there will be no sixth status report.

BCCI's new constitution is drafted and will be submitted in court before 19th Sep.There will be no 6th status report: COA chief Vinod Rai — ANI (@ANI) September 8, 2017

Rai last month claimed that, "It is a work in progress. We (COA) are meeting on September 8 in Delhi, where we will finalise the constitution."

During its August 23 hearing, the apex court had instructed the COA to prepare a draft of the new constitution as per the Lodha panel recommendations.

Then, the court ordered that the draft constitution should be prepared by August 30, considering the upcoming September 30 BCCI elections.

"It all depends on Supreme Court's go ahead,' Rai said on meeting the deadline.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud had said that the draft constitution would be based on its directions of July 18, 2016 and its order of July 24, 2017 by which it had agreed to re-examine the one state one vote principle, the size of the selection committees and the status of associate members.

The COA along with CEO Rahul Johri met in the capital today where they met representatives of North East as well as discussed the new constitution.

"We have completed our work and we will definitely submit the draft constitution in Supreme Court much before the next scheduled hearing on September 19. There will not be a sixth status report," COA chief Vinod Rai told reporters after the meeting.

However, a senior BCCI official on conditions of anonymity said that the report will be submitted to the apex court by Monday.

When Rai was asked about the status of units like Kolkata's National Cricket Club (NCC) and Mumbai's Cricket Club of India (CCI), which are supposed to lose full membership plus voting rights if one adheres to Lodha Reforms, Rai said: "That will be upto the Supreme Court to decide on how much cricket they play."

(With PTI inputs)