Kolkata: Aditya Verma is a man on a mission. The man on whose petition, the Supreme Court appointed the Lodha Commission to clean the affairs of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sounded confident when SportsCrunch caught up with him on phone. And being in his usual self he fired one more salvo at the former BCCI boss, N Srinivasan.
“Let me give you a news. After I won the spot-fixing case in the Bombay High Court in 2013, Srinivasan hired a London based security agency for Rs 18 crore to tap phone calls and hack emails of some influential persons of the anti Srinivasan camp,” Verma, who is also the secretary of the Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) tells us animatedly. The agency was hired through the then BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel and treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry, Verma adds.
Verma also informs that he wrote letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh in May-June 2015 asking them to probe whether the phones and emails of Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice RM Lodha were also tapped and hacked respectively.
Justice Mudgal was in charge of a committee that was formed to conduct an inquiry against Srinivasan, his son-in-law Gurunath Meyiappan, India Cements, the owners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) team, Rajasthan Royals and also spot-fixing allegations in the IPL 2013. And not to be deterred by any legal threat, he continues, “Who is Srini to hire an external agency to snoop on BCCI officials? And how can he do it without taking permission from the government?”
And he adds, “Do you know in the IPL, several kids and relatives of powerful police officers including CBI officers make it to the teams whereas stalwarts like Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan fail to make the cut? These kids and relatives have no credibility, but still the team owners include them to keep the officers happy. I am not going to name them, but there are eight to ten such inclusions in the IPL.”
And he is unstoppable when it comes to attacking Srini and another former BCCI boss, Anurag Thakur. “What are they going to get out of putting up another front?” he asks referring to the meeting that was organised at the behest of Srinivasan in the capital on Sunday.
“It only goes on to prove how desperate these people are. They have looted the BCCI over the years. The highest court of the country has taken a decision and I am hopeful that the efforts of such people with a conflict of interests to regain lost ground will fall flat,” Verma adds.
Verma however refuted claims that former Indian captain and president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), Sourav Ganguly was part of Sunday’s meeting. “Sourav is a champion and a man of integrity. There are some people who are out to defame him. He is the one who changed the face of Indian cricket and people like MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli are reaping the fruits of the initiative taken by him,” Verma says informing that some 20 state associations participated in Sunday’s meeting.
Verma has urged the current chief of the BCCI panel of administrators, Vinod Rai to ensure that all fundings of the BCCI and state associations between 2008-13 be scrutinised. “I would also want that the source of incomes of the officials of the BCCI and state associations in the last ten years be also looked into,” Verma says.
However, on a positive note, Verma has his confidence in Rai and the Supreme Court. “I am hopeful that Bihar and north-eastern states will get full membership as prescribed by the Lodha Commission. How can we deprive the north-eastern states? The national team cannot be selected from 19 states with 26 teams in the Ranji Trophy. Doesn’t a child from Bihar and the north-east have the right to play for India?” Verma asks.
Well, cricket fans should be grateful to him for all his petitions that have ultimately led the apex court to intervene in the matters of the BCCI. But it also remains to be seen how Srinivasan reacts to his allegations. Watch this space for more.