New constitution outlined

With the legality of its functioning pending on a court ruling, the present executive committee of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) yesterday approved a newly drafted constitution in the much talked-about Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) at a hotel in Dhaka yesterday.

The only major change to the constitution in what was the first AGM and EGM under the present committee which was elected in 2013 under a questioned 2012 constitution that the highest court declared illegal, is that the quota for directors from the National Sports Council (NSC) is decreased from three to two. Besides which, the councillors that included a couple of notable absentees including  former BCB president Saber Hossain Chowdhury, who questioned the the legality of holding the AGM following the court ruling,  also passed all the financial statements for seven fiscal years (From 2010-11 to 2016-17).

The constitution was passed in presence of the 135 councillors out of a total 170 without any debate. The BCB expects to get the NSC's approval within the next few days.

"We did not make that much of changes in the constitution as we have followed the guideline of the ICC for some changes. The only major change we made is to cut down the NSC's director quota from three to two after the court ordered to decrease the authority of the NSC. In future there might be no quota for the NSC but that does not mean we have any dispute with them or we are facing any problem to work with the NSC," Nazmul told reporters at a press briefing yesterday.

The BCB president said that the reason behind not making drastic changes in the constitution was to avoid any controversy at the moment.

"We did not make many changes in the constitution as few people might try to look for the gaps in it. And if we would have made many changes then they might have asked why we have created a new constitution rather than just approving the previous one. This is the reason we have kept almost the same constitution," he said.

However despite holding the AGM and EGM the BCB president was unable to announce the election date as the term for the current committee will expire on October 13.

"Whether we will continue or a new committee will be formed or even an ad hoc committee will be made there are no such guideline in the constitution. NSC can help us in this matter as in the constitution the newly elected committee will take over the responsibility after 15 days from the election," he said.

On the other hand, the quota for cricketers in the constitution remained the same.

Earlier on September 24 former BCB director Mobasher Hossain filed a writ petition to the High Court seeking a directive to restrain the BCB's executive committee from holding the then upcoming AGM and EGM.

The High Court later issued a rule upon the government and the NSC to explain why it should not be directed to restrain the current executive committee from discharging its activities. However, it did not pass any order on the plea.