Amitabh Choudhary's 'selective' endorsements questioned

Amitabh Choudhary

Another episode of tu-tu, main-main is on the cards between the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the officebearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) over the appointment of the new Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chief.

The BCCI's general body in its requisitioned Special General Meeting on Friday decided to extend the tenure of former ACU chief Neeraj Kumar, red-flagging CoA's appointment of Ajit Singh, a former Director of General Police (Rajasthan). Singh's appointment has not been signed by the BCCI's acting Secretary Amitabh Choudhary. Singh took charge on April 1 - a week before the Indian Premier League kicked off - after the CoA made BCCI chief executive Rahul Johri to sign his appointment.

Kumar, 64, had got an extension till March 31. Though the BCCI members in the meeting reportedly said that Singh's appointment was not transparent and was made without consulting them, the new ACU chief was chosen from a pool of 13 applicants.

Questions have now been raised over Choudhary's selective approach to sign the new appointments. "Why is there a pick-and-choose approach by the BCCI acting Secretary? Why did he (Choudhary) sign when Saba Karim (General Manager, Cricket Operations), Tufan Ghosh (Chief Operating Officer of the National Cricket Academy) and Hemang Amin (T20 COO) were appointed? All major appointments have been done following a transparent process," a source close to CoA told mid-day on Saturday. CoA chief Vinod Rai though has clarified that Singh will continue to discharge his duties irrespective of the BCCI SGM deciding otherwise.

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