How courts played umpire to fix Rajasthan Cricket Association mess

Summary

The Rajasthan High Court’s decision to dissolve the ad hoc committee running the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA)—a move that has since survived scrutiny in the Supreme Court—is much more than judicial intervention in the functioning of a sports entity. It is an assertion that temporary arrangements cannot become permanent power centres and that governance in sports associations must ultimately flow from democratic elections. The high court’s alarm was evident. The ad hoc committee had been constituted to conduct RCA elections within three months. Instead, it continued for nearly two-and-a-half years through repeated three-month extensions under three different convenors. During the hearing of a public interest litigation, the court questioned not only the committee’s failure to conduct elections but also sought an explanation from the Registrar of Cooperative Societies as to why the repeated extensions were allowed despite earlier judicial directions. It even warned of contempt proceedings before suspending both the committee and the government’s latest extension order. Joshi, a veteran Congress leader; Vaibhav Gehlot, son of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot; and Sanjay Dixit, formerly an IAS officer. The state government’s stand before the Supreme Court is equally significant. Rival factions have repeatedly accused each other of corruption while investigations into earlier FIRs, concerning alleged irregularities in the Congress-era RCA administration and allegations relating to the construction of the new stadium, have made little visible progress.