HCA Directed To Release Long-Pending Cricket Development Funds to Mahmood Cricket Club

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has directed the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) to release long-pending cricket development funds to Mahmood Cricket Club and similarly placed affiliated private clubs, holding that the association could not ignore a binding order passed by its own ombudsman.

Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka allowed a writ petition filed by Mahmood Cricket Club and ordered the HCA to pay development funds of Rs 3 lakh per annum from 2017-18 onwards, amounting to Rs 27 lakh for the period up to 2025-26, within eight weeks.

Justice Bheemapaka took strong exception on the HCA’s stand that payment of development funds to affiliated clubs was an internal policy decision and could not be subjected to judicial intervention under Article 226 as a writ petition. It also argued that there was no element of public function involved in the internal policy decision, which was a private administrative action.

The judge asked that when HCA, in February 2026, was in a position to mobilise and disburse a sum in excess of Rs 68 crore in favour of a private commercial entity, how could it at the same point of time contemporaneously withhold the comparatively modest sum of Rs 3 lakh per annum payable to affiliated clubs. Moreover, the HCA was under the binding order of its own ombudsman, which had remained unimplemented for over nine months as on that date.

On the objections raised by the HCA, that the issue concerned internal policy, the court held that the association, despite being a registered society, performed public functions in regulating and administering cricket in Telangana and was therefore amenable to the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The dispute arose after the Mahmood Cricket Club alleged that HCA had stopped disbursing annual development grants to affiliated private clubs from the financial year 2017-18, despite resolutions passed in previous annual general meetings approving such payments. Advocate Zeeshan Adnan Mahmood, representing the affiliated club, submitted to the court that the club successfully approached the HCA ethics officer and ombudsman, who in May 2025 directed the association to release the funds. However, the order remained unimplemented.

The court noted that HCA had neither challenged nor expressed any grievance against the ombudsman's order, which had consequently attained finality. The judge observed that once a quasi-judicial order became final, the association was legally bound to implement it and could not indefinitely postpone compliance by referring the issue back to its general body.

The court rejected HCA's contention that the payment of arrears depended on the availability of funds. Justice Bheemapaka remarked that the plea of want of funds was hollow and observed that HCA's conduct in promptly honouring one obligation while ignoring another binding order was manifestly arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

The court held that the development grant was not a matter of fresh policy consideration but a settled entitlement flowing from a 2015 general body resolution and subsequently affirmed by the ombudsman. Any attempt to place the issue before the general body again would amount to reopening a matter already concluded by a competent adjudicatory authority, the court said.

Justice Bheemapaka noted that bodies discharging public functions must act fairly and in an unbiased manner and concluded that HCA could not "pick and choose" which binding obligations it would honour.