Mumbai: Former India Test batsman Praveen Amre and ex-Karnataka left-arm spinner Raghuram Bhat have been found to be in Conflict of Interest by the Cricket Board’s Ombudsman who has cleared former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar from a similar charge. Also cleared by the Board’s Ombudsman, Justice (Retd) A.P. Shah, after his attention was drawn to a similar Conflict of Interest issue is IPL Governing Council’s chairman Rajeev Shukla, as per details available on the BCCI’s website bcci.tv.
Amre, a member of the Mumbai Cricket Association’s managing committee as well as the coaching staff of IPL team Delhi Deredevils, was deemed to have potential Conflict of Interest by a complaint lodged with the Ombudsaman. The Ombudsman rejected Amre’s contention that there was no conflict as he had joined the Daredevils coaching staff before the 2015 edition of IPL and only subsequently became a managing committee member in MCA before renewing his contract with the IPL franchise this year.
Justice Shah found that there existed a conflict of interest in this case as per the BCCI rules which stipulated that an administrator, which includes members of the managing committee of the affiliated units of BCCI, or his near relative shall not be on the pay roll of an IPL franchise. “Mr Amre should not have taken any position in the coaching staff of an IPL franchise, while being an administrator,” he has stated in his order.
He has also directed the Board to take appropriate action against Amre as the IPL edition has already concluded and has declared that “for the next edition of the IPL, Mr Amre cannot continue to be a part of the MCA Managing Committee and the Delhi Daredevils (or any other IPL team) coaching staff.” “The BCCI is also directed to write to all the IPL franchises to clarify Rule 1 (A)(B) of the Rules on Conflict of Interest that the franchises cannot employ any Administrator (as defined in the Rules) as part of its support staff,” the Ombudsman has said in his July 6 Order.
The Ombudsman, however, held that six others connected with Karnataka State Cricket Association — B.K. Ravi, L. Prashanth, Mansoor Ali Khan, Somashekar Siriguppi, Rajesh Kamath and Yere Gowda — did not have any conflict of interest.
