FMR Supreme Court Judge DK Jain Appointed Ombudsman for BCCI

THE Supreme Court of India has appointed its former judge D K Jain as the ombudsman for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Lieutenant General Ravi Thodge as the third member of the Committee of Administrators (CoA). A Bench comprising Justices SA Bobde and AM Sapre initially asked senior advocate PS Narasimha, the Amicus Curiae in the matter, regarding the urgency to appoint an ombudsman. “Will the game of cricket suffer?” asked Justice Bobde. Narasimha replied it was necessary to sort out disputes that may arise in the daily affairs of the cricket board. If an ombudsman was there when the controversy over comments by Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul erupted, he would have been able to look into it, pointed out Narasimha. They asked the counsel for CoA and the various state associations if they were fine with the court appointing the ombudsman. The parties agreed and suggested the name of Justice Jain. The court accepted this and ordered that Justice Jain “shall assume charge of the Office as early as possible”. “We, accordingly, appoint Justice (retd.) D K Jain as the first ombudsman under article 40, chapter nine of the constitution of BCCI framed by this court under order dated August 9, 2018,” the bench said.The clause says the ombudsman is appointed for the purpose of providing an independent dispute resolution mechanism. The types of disputes that come under the ambit of ombudsman pertain to members, associations and the Indian Premier League teams.  The Ombudsman will look into the controversy over comments made by Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul at a talk show. The duo was suspended from the Indian team pending inquiry on January 11 this year. The CoA however revoked the suspension on January 25 after consultations with the Amicus Curiae “pending appointment and adjudication of the allegations by the BCCI Ombudsman.” The new ombudsman will now go through the materials in detail and arrive at a decision. Ramchandra Guha and Vikram Limaye, who were appointed by the SC to the BCCI CoA in January 2017, had resigned leaving it with only two members – Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji.