Two members of MCA Apex Council disqualified for conflict of interest

In what comes as a shocking news, The Ethics Officer of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has disqualified two members of the Apex Council of the MCA. This decision was taken on the grounds of conflict of interest. According to a report on Cricbuzz, the two members involved in this scenario are Unmesh Khanvilkar and Kiran Powar.

Retired Justice VK Tahilramani, a former chief justice of Madras High Court, held on Tuesday that there was evidence of uncontrollable conflict of interest against these two members of the Apex council. While Khanvilkar is a former joint secretary of the MCA, Powar is a former first class cricketer of Mumbai. However, both of them have now been barred from continuing in their position with immediate effect.

As his sister sister Chitra Khanvilkar was appointed as the trainer of Mumbai women’s team, it is a case of conflict with respect to Khanvilkar being the joint secretary, and this is what was said by retired Justice Tahilramani. It has also been observed that the respondent has completed six years in the MCA, first as a joint secretary (from June 17, 2015 to October 3, 2019) and then, as an apex council member (October 4, 2019 to till date) and hence, needs to go into a cooling-off period.

Four grounds to host Ranji games

In the case of Powar, retired justice Tahilramani found him to be in a position of conflict of interest due to the fact that his brother, Ramesh Powar was made Mumbai coach when he was in the Apex Council. Thus, the 45-year-old has been disqualified from all cricket activity for one year. It is to be noted that his brother is now the head coach of the Indian women’s team.

In the meanwhile, the MCA has decided to host the games of the upcoming Ranji Trophy in four different grounds in Mumbai. The grounds which have been identified by The Apex Council are Wankhede Stadium, Dadoji Kondadev Stadium in Thane and Bandra Kurla Complex. Thus, there are 15 games in the domestic tournament which have been allotted to the MCA.

The matches of the Elite A will be hosted by the cricket association of Mumbai. This group includes the matches of the Elite A Group which comprises of Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal, Madhya Pradesh, Services and Assam. India’s domestic tournament is all set to take place after a gap of one year, which had was not conducted last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.