WHEN YOUTH QUESTIONED POWER

The Supreme Court verdict has its origins in the joint PIL of these two trailblazers

By QAISER MOHAMMAD ALI, FROM OUTLOOK magazine, issue dated August 1, 2016

If the BCCI today faces a situation when it has to undergo wide-ranging changes, it was one of its own administrators who unwittingly sowed the seeds of opposition. Just before India’s tour of Australia in 1999-2000, then BCCI secretary J.Y. Lele had said in an interview that Sachin Tendulkar-captained India would lose the three-Test series 0-3.

That prediction triggered a probing, nagging doubt in Shantanu Sharma, who had freshly completed graduation from Bhagat Singh College in Delhi: “I was disgusted after reading that interview. I told Rahul Mehra—my old classmate—that I wanted to do something.”

Hindu College graduate Rahul, too, felt “something fishy...smelt fixing” and wondered how a BCCI administrator could so openly predict the outcome of a series.

“I approached one of my uncles in Delhi administration and in two months we got the documents we wanted,” 43-year-old Rahul, now senior standing counsel (civil) & standing counsel (criminal) of Delhi government, tells Outlook.

Shantanu and Rahul, both products of Delhi’s Modern School, approached lawyer Prashant Bhushan to help them file what turned out to be the first meaningful PIL against the powerful BCCI and Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA). It led to the Delhi High Court passing a “favourable judgement”, making the BCCI open to judicial scrutiny under Article 226 (Power of High Courts to issue certain writs).

“For the over 75 years [of BCCI’s exi¬st¬ence till then], the law was that only members of BCCI could challenge it in a court of law. But after our PIL and the passing of the landmark judgment, any citizen of India could challenge BCCI and other sports bodies, as they were held to be discharging key public functions, like selection of team India etc, which are akin to state functions,” Rahul explains.

“Thus, for the first time, an ordinary citizen had successfully challenged a sports body (read BCCI) and succeeded in making it acc¬ountable to Indian citizens and be transparent in its functioning,” he says proudly of their joint PIL. “Initially, we wanted a legendary cricketer to file that PIL. But none came forward. Between 1999 and 2007 simply nobody raised the [BCCI-related] issues.”

Shantanu, a businessman, discloses: “We did our homework and collected documents from people who themselves turned out to be corrupt. They tried to corrupt us, but we wouldn’t allow that to happen.” Rahul and Shantanu’s fight was against corruption and mismanagement in the BCCI and DDCA; they passionately wanted to cleanse the game.

Today, both Rahul and Shantanu take pride that their pioneering fight against corruption in sports as young men has culminated in the Supreme Court ordering the BCCI to make all-round changes in its constitution and outlook.

“I’m delighted with the judgement. It also shows, in a way, that our cause in filing that PIL in 1999 was just,” says a satisfied Shan¬tanu. “When I was fighting that case, my fat¬her was against it; he nearly disowned me.”

His father’s views would have changed after the historic SC judgment.

HIS FIGHT TO THE FINISH (vs BCCI)

In his gritty tussle with BCCI, Aditya Verma had a little help from friends

By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, From OUTLOOK magazine, Dated August 1, 2016

A day before the historic Supreme Court judgement on July 18 compelled the BCCI to start making wholesale changes in its set-up and rules, former cricketer Saad Bin Jung sent an SMS to petitioner Aditya Verma, saying, “Forget Bihar cricket, you’ve saved Indian cricket. People will remember you for that”.

That could be an apt summary of the three-year-long battle that Verma (52), secretary of the unrecognised Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB), one of the several factions in the state, fought in the Bombay High Court and in the apex court.

Verma has another ambition. “I’ve been praying, please let me see the day my Bihar team would again play in the Ranji Trophy,” Verma tells Outlook. “My ambition is to help at least a dozen Bihar cricketers represent India in the next five years.” It’s to be seen if the BCCI includes Bihar (and other non-full member states) in the 2016-17 dom¬estic tournaments, beginning in September-October, as the SC has given the BCCI six months to implement the Lodha Committee’s recommendations.

It all began in May 2013, when Verma, a former university cricketer, moved the Bombay HC against the ‘flimsy probe’ that the BCCI was trying to conduct into the 2013 IPL betting-fixing case. One of those implicated was Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of then BCCI president N. Srinivasan. Verma, said to be backed by a BCCI lobby, demanded a thorough probe.

After Verma registered a ‘partial win’ in Bombay, the case moved to the SC and its scope expanded. About three years later, on July 18, Verma had a reason to smile, as a bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice F.M.I. Kalifulla pronounced the judgement at 2.14 pm. “It’s an excellent judgement; rather, it has exceeded my expectation a little,” he says. “Although deep inside I was confident of this kind of judgement, the Supreme Court, after all, has its own perspective of things.”

The fact that Bihar has not competed in the Ranji Trophy for 15 years deeply hurts Verma. The Jagmohan Dalmiya-led BCCI had snatched away the full membership of India’s third most populous state in September 2001, handing it to the newly-¬carved Jharkhand. Board politics was the reason, Verma alleges. The apex court judgement has not only restored Bihar’s vote as a full member, but also ordered the BCCI to give within six months all states, including small ones like Arunachal Pradesh, 

Meghalaya and Nagaland, the same privilege—something they didn’t have so far. There have been reports that Verma’s petition was actually part of a bigger game-plan within and outside the Board: get back at former BCCI president N. Srinivasan. This lobby included Lalit Modi, a prime malcontent who was expelled by the Srinivasan-Shashank Manohar duo in 2010 for ‘financial misdemeanour’. In that respect, the anti-Srinivasan gang has succeeded—thus far. 

Modi has even admitted to footing Verma’s petition-related bills. Verma concedes that he has had to seek ass¬istance from people, though he claims that he also sold his own land for Rs 40 lakh to meet his legal expenses. “I faced a fund crunch. I would beg people for various things while fighting this case, like plane tickets for myself,” he confesses. With the BCCI firmly under Srinivasan’s thumb, the IPL betting-fixing scandal came like a godsend for Modi, Verma and others. And a beleagured Modi found in Verma someone who was willing to stick his neck out against the might of Srinivasan. “People talked about many things; that Lalit Modi funded my case and others helping me. It was because Modi’s enemy was also my enemy [Srinivasan]. And because Modi and his lawyers were fighting the Rajasthan Cricket Association’s suspension [by a Srinivasan-led BCCI], we became friends,” he admits candidly.

Sometime during the long-drawn case, Verma says he was offered money to back out and also threatened with dire consequences. Did he feel ever feel like quitting? “Never,” he says. “If I take up an issue or a cause, I don’t relax until I take that to its logical end. I can’t butter up people. To fight for my right is in my character.” 

One of his team of lawyers, led by Nalini Chidambaram, praises Verma for “refusing to be bought”. 

“I appreciated that he stood steadfastly against the BCCI and his tenacity under pressure,” says Chidambaram. In fact, for the case, Verma sacrificed his son’s fledgling cricket career. “Srinivasan, through Bengal cricket chief Dalmiya, ensured that my son was not selected in the Bengal under-19 team, even after playing for Calcutta University for three years. No one was ready to pick him,” he claims.

Verma himself was a promising opening batsman who idolised Sunil Gavaskar (“I was such a staunch fan that, like him, I never wore a helmet”). But he’d often stand up to ‘injustice’, resulting in his not being picked for the Bihar Ranji Trophy team. This tendency even cost him a job. But that was the past. At the moment, Verma is feeling vindicated about having taken up the right cause, and won. Right now, he’s not thinking far—whether or not the historic judgement would lead to a much-needed cleansing of the other Indian sports federations too.