JKCA row: Farooq Abdullah foils Imran Raza Ansari’s presidency bid

A move to end Farooq Abdullah’s tenure as president of Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) was cut short when a Jammu court stayed his ouster after state minister for Youth Services and Sports, Imran Raza Ansari of the PDP, got himself elected to the JKCA top post on Monday.

“We have taken over,” Ansari said after he was elected president of the cricket association. “We have also opened bank accounts of the office-bearers of the association,” he said.

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JKCA chairman AS Mickey, a confidante of the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, however went to court and the Excise Magistrate (Jammu), Arvinder Singh Langeh, stayed till further orders “any decision, if taken, in the JKCA meeting”. The court set July 31 as the next date of hearing. Ansari, though, said he has not received any notice from the court. But the court directive has now put JKCA — embroiled in a corruption case pending at the Jammu and Kashmir High Court — in a limbo with both parties claiming to be its president.

Monday’s move to oust Abdullah as JKCA president is the first time his authority was challenged since he became its chief in 1980. Abdullah has been president of the association since then.

In May last year, Abdullah was elected as the state cricket association president for a period of three years. But according to the JKCA constitution elections are to be held annually for the post of president and other office-bearers.

Extension of term

However, Abdullah said the rules were amended by the general council meeting of the association in June 2011 extending the term to three years.

Hence “no elections are due in JKCA as the tenure of the present president and office-bearers is three years,” Abdullah claimed.

“The constitution says that the elections should be held every year,” Ansari argued. “The extension to the term of president to three years is his (Abdullah’s) unilateral decision. He wanted to become the life-time president of the association, but that can’t happen,” the sports minister added.

On Monday morning, only 42 members of the working committee — the total strength is 64 — turned up for the elections and all of them voted in favour of Ansari.

The pro-Abdullah members boycotted the election. The Cricket Association has 50 members representing 25 clubs — 13 from the Kashmir division and 12 from Jammu — while 14 members are nominated from government departments like Youth Services and Sports and educational institutions like Kashmir and Jammu universities.

The JKCA rule also provides for bestowing lifetime membership, but this has been conferred only on Abdullah.

While Ansari was elected president of the association, a former J&K bureaucrat and PDP candidate in the last assembly elections, Mehboob Iqbal, was made the chairman. There are serious corruption charges against Iqbal though from his tenure as a bureaucrat.

Terming Monday’s meeting and the election as “illegal”, Abdullah has now convened a separate meeting on July 24.

“As per rules of JKCA, elections are held in a working committee which is presided over by the president and for which notification is to be issued by the elected general secretary,” Abdullah said in a statement.

“There is a very clear and explicit judgment. that working committee meetings of JKCA are necessarily to be presided over by the president and its notification is to be issued by the general secretary and no body else.”

Ansari, however, said the JKCA rules allow the conduct of elections if the president is not present.

Over the past few years, JKCA has been under the scanner for corruption charges and a PIL is pending at the high court. The corruption charges first surfaced in April 2012, when the then treasurer Manzoor Wazir filed a police complaint against former general secretary Mohammad Saleem Khan and former treasurer Ahsan Mirza — a close confidante of Abdullah — alleging misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 113 crore.