Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has found fault with the Hyderabad Cricket Association for spending Rs 75.78 lakh towards breakfast and lunch for four days during last month’s Indo-Bangladesh Test played at Hyderabad and also issuance of complimentary passes of more than 25 per cent of the total seating capacity of the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.
A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice Shameem while disposing of an interim application of the BCCI seeking to appoint observer or administrator for conducting IPL 2017 Season matches in Hyderabad made several observations at the affairs of the HCA. The bench pointed out that “unnecessary expenditure, being incurred on the four days of the Test match, has resulted in money, which could have been better utilised to promote cricket and groom youngsters of Telangana to play for India in future, being frivolously spent for the self-aggrandisement of the office bearers of the HCA.”
The bench pointed out that though the Test match ended within four days, a sum in excess of Rs 75.78 lakh was spent by HCA for breakfast and lunch on these four days alone.” India beat Bangladesh by 208 runs in the match that went almost into the final session on the fifth day. The bench noted that no explanation is given why the HCA office bearers did not even choose to verify the claim of the Inspector of Police that 2,000 policemen were deployed each day of the Test match, nor was any effort to ascertain the exact number of policemen deployed in the stadium, justifying the abnormal expenditure, in excess of Rs 34.65 lakh towards their breakfast and lunch alone.
The BCCI observer in his report submitted to the High Court pointed out that the HCA had issued 11,500 complimentary tickets as against the total capacity of the stadium of 39,000 seats. The present office-bearers the HCA claimed that they had issued only 3,860 complimentary tickets which were below the 10 per cent limit prescribed by the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee, and the additional 5,000 student passes were issued on the directions of the BCCI. The bench observed that even assuming that the claim was true that HCA issued only 8,860 passes, there was no explanation for the remaining more than 2,600 passes issued by HCA office-bearers.
HCA staffers demand pending payments:
The employees and ground staff of the Hyderabad Cricket Association are demanding immediate release of pending payments which carries a huge list of payments ceased by the officials. They have struck work by holding up placards that read ‘No money, No work’ at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
The employees demand release of 45 day bonus for the 2015 and 2016 seasons; release of 2016 IPL incentive; payment of Best Ground reward for 2016; leave encashment for 2016, overtime conveyance and bonus payment for the recent India-Bangladesh Test match as well as the release of 45 days salaries for the months of January and February 2017.
