HC allows BCA polling but stays results over challenge to More, others

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Friday allowed the Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) to go ahead with the polling on Sunday, but stayed election results after a couple of members complained that some senior office-bearers, including former cricketer Kiran More, contested the elections despite their disqualification under the Supreme Court's guidelines owing to their long past tenure.Justice Niral Mehta permitted BCA to conduct the elections scheduled on Sunday, but asked it not to go ahead with counting without its permission. The order read, "Counting of votes and publication of result shall not be made without prior permission of this court. The election officer shall ensure safe custody of ballot papers and shall take all necessary steps to ensure preservation of the relevant material and data in connection with election process and further maintain complete secrecy."
The petition was filed by two BCA members, Pradeepsinh Solanki and Ramchandra Prajapati, for enforcement of SC guidelines, which disqualify individuals who completed a cumulative nine-year tenure as an office-bearer and/or councillor in a state association and mandate a three-year cooling-off period after two consecutive terms. They wanted to restrain Kiran More, Amul Jikar, Anant Indulkar and Amar Petiwale from contesting polls for different posts, citing SC guidelines.BCA and the contestants questioned the maintainability of the petition, but the HC upheld the maintainability. The court noted the petitioners' objections dated Jan 20 and 27, alleging disqualification of candidates, were not decided, no hearing was granted, and the final candidate list was published without orders, prima facie violating natural justice.The HC issued notice to the BCA and the four contestants and sought their replies by Feb 17, when further hearing of the case has been posted.