Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul Face Uncertainty Over Their Future As CoA Members Differs Over Inquiry

The inquiry to decide the fate of the suspended Indian National Cricket team players Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul is likely to postpone as the two-member Committee of Administrators (CoA), in charge of running the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), have entirely divergent positions on how to approach the issue.

Meanwhile, as per reports in CricketNext, Chairman Vinod Rai wants to appoint an ad-hoc ombudsman, as suggested by the BCCI’s legal advisors while former India women’s captain Diana Edulji is insisting that only a permanent appointee, as mandated by the new constitution, can conduct such a probe.

“The Supreme Court hearing is scheduled for 17th Jan, let the court be informed about this situation and let an Ombudsman be appointed by the court instead of taking a wrong step of appointing the ad hoc ombudsman, which is not as per the new constitution,” Edulji wrote to Vinod Rai.

The Supreme Court will be taking up Cricket Association of Bihar’s petition about the working of the CoA and BCCI on January 17. However, Vinod Rai is keen to get the process going in the absence of a permanent appointee. BCCI’s legal advisors, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, had approved such a move in their reply to Edulji’s query on January 10.

“The CoA can appoint an ad hoc ombudsman with a defined specific mandate of adjudicating on the present matter and he should be a retired Judge of the Supreme Court or a retired Chief Justice of a High Court,” he said.

In the meantime, Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul, who will head back home, continue to be on the tenterhooks about their future with little clarity about when the process to determine sanctions against them will begin.