Court directs BCCI to allow GCA vote

Sandesh Prabhudesai
28 September 2001  

The local court here has directed the Board of Control for Cricket in India not to deny right to vote to the Goa Cricket Association at the annual general meeting scheduled in Chennai tomorrow.

The BCCI has also been given option to allow secret ballot to the GCA and seal the vote till the case is disposed. The next hearing is fixed for 12 October. In such a case, the fate of elections could be in limbo if there is difference of one vote.

Dayanand Narvekar, the GCA president and former deputy chief minister, rushed to the court based on a news agency report that the GCA will not be allowed to vote as they are involved in legal dispute.

Narvekar, along with some GCA officials and ticket contractor, was chargesheeted in a bogus ticket scam that rocked the country after the final ODI between India and Australia played in Goa on 6 April.

While pleading for ex-parte relief, Narvekar's counsel Adv. Subodh Kantak claimed that neither any dues to BCCI nor any inquiry are pending or show cause notice has been served, due to which the GCA could be denied voting right.

The BCCI counsel Adv. Vilas Thali, who appeared at the last minute today, contended that the plea had no meaning since the GCA had nothing in writing to prove the contention. He however expressed his inability to present the BCCI version, stating that no official was available on phone.

Narvekar, in the meanwhile, has already sent his secretary Vinod Fadke, authorising him to cast the GCA vote. "He will go and vote on behalf of the GCA", he said.

The matter of who is the GCA secretary is however presently pending before the BCCI with two groups appointing three different people as the secretary, when the court had debarred Narvekar and Fadke to function for some time after the ticket scam.

According to Narvekar, these are pressure tactics used by the BCCI people and rumours are being simply spread in such a manner. "It is a fallout of the infighting within the BCCI and I am not part of any particular group", he clarified.

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