Stressing that a person of the stature of Sourav Ganguly deserves to complete his tenure as President of the BCCI, Aditya Verma said his goal was to make cricket board work clear.

Aditya Verma the original petitioner in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing case has appeal to the Supreme Court waive the mandatory three-year cooling-off period of BCCI president Sourav Ganguly which begins in July.

“Being the original petitioner on whose PIL the whole constitutional revamp happened, I have decided to file a plea that apex court should let Sourav Ganguly and his team (secretary Jay Shah in this case) continue for a term of three years,” On Monday Verma told PTI.

Under BCCI based new constitution on the reforms of the RM Lodha Committee on Justice, Someone who has been a state office bearer, as well as BCCI for a consecutive six-year period, will have to go for a mandatory three-year cooling-off period.

In the case of Ganguly, a former joint secretary and later president of the Cricket Association of Bengal took over in October had about nine months in the BCCI office.

Ditto for Shah has been Gujarat Cricket Association’s secretary for a period of five-plus years and will go through compulsory cooling off too.

And why is Aditya Verma is going to file another petition? “My entire intention was to ensure BCCI has a transparent functioning. If a person of Sourav’s stature can’t complete his term, then what’s the use?” According to Verma, the second explanation is continuity.

“The BCCI had been completely mismanaged by the Committee of Administrators (CoA) for nearly three years. Any person coming in charge needs to time to put a system in place. Ganguly and his team must be given that time,” Verma said.

“If you look at the current scenario. There is a complete lockdown in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Supposedly we lose two months of activity, it is unfair on both Ganguly and Shah that they are not given a fair chance to set the house in order. That will be my plea,” Verma said.