Did Dalmiya bend rules to get his votes?

Did Dalmiya bend rules to get his votes?
Vrinda Gopinath

New Delhi, May 16: Perhaps one damning document in Punjab Cricket Association president IS Bindra's 400-page report to the CBI is the sanction of 30,000 by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for the ``smooth'' election of Jagmohan Dalmiya as chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

According to the minutes of a BCCI executive committee meeting in August, 1996, at Vishakapatnam, the BCCI asked the Reserve Bank of India for clearance of the amount to ``pay for the international travel, hotel accommodation and local transportation of the representatives of some ICC associate members.''

This was in contravention of the application made to the RBI which stated ``(sanction) to meet the expenses towards legal expenses, fees of solicitors, meetings with different member-countries, as well as dinner for ICC members in connection with India's candidature of ICC elect-chairman.''

Ironically, the chairman of BCCI was Bindra himself.

The decision to ``faciltiate'' voting in Dalmiya's favour at the ICC election is significant because Dalmiya was not declared a winner even after the second round of voting -- the ICC insisted that the winner require a special majority of two-thirds of full members besides a simple majority of all members.

Though Dalmiya was leading in the second round, having polled 25 votes (four of full members and 17 of associate members) as against his only opponent Malcolm Gray of Australia (who polled 13), he still did not qualify because of the ruling.

While legal opinion was indeed invited, like that of Sir Micheal Beloff, the Queen's counsel as well as of Justice RS Pathak, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a judge of the International Court of Justice, who opined that the ICC ruling was illegal and against the rules, there were differences of opinion whether the ICC ruling should be challenged in court.

However, it was decided that if ``legal opinion was strong and if India had the unanimous support of member-countries, the Board should take actions accordingly ... and any further expenditure needed for the purpose, should be met by the BCCI.''

As the chairman explained: ``Various member-boards which are not in a very sound position economically, usually have a representative in England who attend the ICC meetings on behalf of their countries ... these English representatives usually towed the line followed by England although their Boards could be having a different opinion.'' Thus, the chairman observed that ``in order to have fair voting, it was essential to ensure the attendance of the actual representative of the member-countries.'' He also informed that ``other countries, especially Australia, were paying for travel, hotel accommodation and local transportation of the representatives of some of the associate member-countries. In view of these factors, the Indian delegates also decided to pay for the international travel, hotel accommodation and local transportation ... so that they attended in person instead of their English representatives to attend voting ... owing to this, the expenditure was 36,576.40 sterling pounds.''