MUMBAI: Committee of Administrators member Diana Edulji on Friday recommended “suspension till further action” against India players Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul after seeking the advice of the BCCI legal team on the action to be taken against the duo for crass comments made on celebrity television chat show Koffee with Karan.
Following on from this, Pandya and Rahul will miss the three-match one-day series against Australia for their sexist comments on the show, according to multiple media reports.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has communicated to the Indian team management not to consider the duo for selection, the reports indicate.
Additionally, the BCCI has decided to set up a 6-member panel to review the case.
“Based on the legal opinion and till the time the final procedure is laid down to address this issue, will recommend that a communication be sent to the concerned players and the team immediately,” Edulji stated in her note sent to CoA chief Vinod Rai and widely accessed by the media.
“It will be imperative that the players be put under suspension till a further course of action is decided for this misconduct as was done in the case of (BCCI) CEO (Rahul Johri) when he was sent on leave in the sexual harassment matter,” Edulji wrote in response to recommendations from the board’s legal firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.
In a related development, BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry called on the CoA to hand Pandya and Rahul sterner punishment. He even suggested that the two players be banned from the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) if they have breached any of BCCI’s contract regulations.
Chaudhary cited the harsh ban handed out by Cricket Australia to skipper Steve Smith, and his deputy David Warner and Cameron Bancroft on the ball-tampering saga.
“The players who appeared on the show have definitely brought the game, Indian cricket and cricketers into disrepute by their words and admitted conduct. The consequences for bringing the game of cricket into disrepute are definitely something which will have to be considered… It would be pertinent to note that the COA had, in those facts and circumstances (Smith and Warner), also taken the decision to ban those players for the IPL 2018,” added Chaudhary.
He also suggested that “the entire team and support staff must go through a sensitisation process, and CEO may join them, as was recommended by Ms Veena Gowda, advocate” who was part of special committee set up by Rai alone to deal with BCCI CEO Rahul Johri’s sexual harassment case.
Chaudhary also demanded an investigation into how the two players appeared on an entertainment show.
“The provisions of the earlier contracts and the practice in place would have required these contracted players to seek permission to appear on the show. Was such a permission sought? Was such a permission granted? If so, by whom” he was obviously pointing towards players’ agent controlling the Indian dressing room.
Earlier in the day, India captain Virat Kohli made it very clear that his team did not support the “inappropriate comments”.
Kohli also noted that the backlash of their controversial and boorish comments mostly about women on ‘Koffee with Karan’ has hit Pandya and Rahul “hard” and that they have “understood the magnitude of what’s happened”.
