BCCI’s ethics officer and ombudsman Devinder Kumar Jain has served a notice to the Indian Cricket board’s Vice-President Rajeev Shukla after a complaint against him was filled regarding the ‘conflict of interest’ policy. The notice by the ethics officer was served on January 14. Shukla is a veteran administrator and BCCI’s latest appointee. He was also part of last month’s Annual General Meeting.
DK Jain retired Supreme Court Judge while serving the order to Shukla wrote, “A complaint has been received by the Ethics Officer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, under rule 39 (2) (b) of the Rules and Regulations of the BCCI, regarding certain acts, allegedly constituting as conflict of interest against Mr. Rajeev Shukla”, says a PTI report. The Ethics Officer has given Shukla and the BCCI two weeks’ time to file his response.
The matter of ‘conflict of interest’ regarding the Vice-President of BCCI was reported by former life member of MPCA Sanjeev Gupta. Since Shukla is the Director of Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association and an officer bearer at BCCI, he ends up breaking the ‘conflict of interest’ policy.
According to the new BCCI constitution, no individual can occupy more than one post in the cricket board or state association. If someone abides by the rule, he/she would be alleged on conflict of interest. Last month, BCCI served a similar notice to TNCA President Rupa Gurunath, which seems still unbothered. In the past, Indian cricketers including BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, and Kapil Dev all were in a position of conflict.