Ratnakar Shetty Blasts Hyderabad Cricket Association For Violating Rules During India-Bangladesh Test

Ratnakar Shetty, who was appointed as observer for the one-off Test match between India and Bangladesh, has slammed the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) for violation of rules during the match in his report submitted to the Hyderabad High Court.

The BCCI general manager, who was appointed by the Hyderabad Court and further on approval received by the Committee of Administrators of the BCCI, accused the HCA of violating Supreme Court’s orders.

“The president and secretary were given clear instructions that the officials who had to demit office in accordance with the orders passed by the Supreme Court should not be involved in the match. However, former vice-president Syed Moinuddin who demitted office, was actively involved in the tendering process and award of contracts,” Shetty wrote.

“The total expenses for food alone were Rs 75 lakh. The HCA office bearers and the executive committee members are more keen to protect their own vote banks by giving free tickets with buffet lunch to the members. Almost 50 per cent of the catering bills are towards members and officials — each club gets five passes in the main pavilion with lunch,” Shetty added.

Shetty did not even spare president M. Narender Goud and accused him of playing a big role in violating the tendering process.

“It was observed that the tendering process followed by HCA is far from being transparent. Most contracts had one vendor bidding and in some cases no bids were called. The interim president himself handpicked an agency for ticketing without any tender. One of the joint secretaries was involved with the award of contracts for buses and cars for the teams and match officials. There was only one tender and quotations were called for use of vehicles for 24 hours — something which is unheard of,” he wrote.

“There is one vendor M/s Sanjay Maintenance Services who has been awarded various annual maintenance contracts (10 in all) by HCA aggregating to a payment of approximately Rs 10 lakh per month and yet the same vendor has been given separate contracts for the similar scope of work for the match days,” Shetty added.