The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Treasurer ArunDhumal and Vice President Rajiv Shukla will look after the functioning of the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) till its elections are held.
The decision to hand over the JKCA affairs to senior officials of the BCCI was taken in a highly-awaited BCCI Apex Committee meeting held on Friday in which a number of decisions regarding the cricket affairs in the country were taken.
In the meeting, the BCCI decided that its Treasurer ArunDhumal and Vice President Rajiv Shukla will look after the functioning of the JKCA as per J&K High Court directions. The senior BCCI officials are going to head the adhoc committee that is likely to be formed for the functioning of the JKCA. From the BCCI end, ArunDhumal and Rajiv Shukla would be taking all the major decisions regarding functioning of the JKCA.
On March 23 this year, a Divisional Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court had directed the BCCI to run the management, control and administration of the JKCA till elections for the association are held. In the same order, the court had quashed the Court Appointed Administrators (CAA) of the JKCA along with removing the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) AshiqBukhari.
It was on December 6, 2017 that the High Court had appointed ex-police officer AshiqBukhari as JKCA CEO and former judge Justice Syed Bashir-ud-Din as an ombudsman.
Before that, the court had on October 14, 2017 appointed Justice (retired) CK Prasad, former judge of the Supreme Court, and Justice (retired) Syed RafatAlam, former Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court, as administrators of the JKCA.
Several former cricketers and cricket administrators in J&K have welcomed the BCCI decision and termed it “good for J&K cricket”.
JKCA’s representative in the BCCI for the past two years and known cricket administrator, RanjeetKalra, while welcoming the decision termed it a “welcome initiative”.
“I thank BCCI President SouravGanguly, Secretary Jay Shah and other members of the Apex Council for the appointment of an ad-hoc committee comprising two most experienced cricket administrators of the country who also hold important offices in the BCCI,” he said. “I am sure their vast and rich experience proves to be a blessing for J&K and hopefully we shall see better and brighter days for cricket in the Union Territory.”
Former cricketer Abdul QayoomBagaw said the move will help in the development of cricket in J&K.
“The appointment of Rajiv Shukla and ArunDhumal is a welcome step as they both are highly experienced cricket administrators. They will not find it difficult to sort out issues in J&K cricket,” he said.
“Being top officials in the BCCI and now directly handling the JKCA affairs means our cricketers will have a direct reach to the country’s top cricket body. While the cricketers will benefit, there is a huge chance of development as well,” Bagaw said.
A former JKCA official said that the senior BCCI officials now will form different committees to look after the affairs of the JKCA.
“They are the two top senior officials in the BCCI. They are already preoccupied with a lot of issues and work. As the BCCI Apex Committee made them incharge of the JKCA functioning, they will now form different committees to run the J&K cricket body at grassroots level. Also, those committees would be under the direct control of ArunDhumal and Rajiv Shukla,” he said.