Pandya, Rahul, Johri should undergo sensitisation: BCCI office-bearers

BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and Hardik Pandya

The BCCI office-bearers did not miss out on the opportunity to lash out at BCCI CEO Rahul Johri after the Indian cricket board found itself embroiled in another controversy following crass comments from Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul on a TV show recently. BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary and treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry trained their guns on Johri in their emails to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) yesterday.

Johri was given a contentious clean chit by the three-member independent inquiry committee last November after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced against him. The BCCI treasurer suggested that Pandya, Rahul as well as Johri should undergo a proper sensitisation - "...must be allowed to join the team [if selected] only once they have gone through a proper sensitisation in addition to serving a ban, if imposed upon them. In any case, the entire team and support staff must go through a sensitisation process. The CEO may join them in the sensitisation as well as recommended by Veena Gowda, Advocate," Chaudhry wrote.

Amitabh Choudhary

Gowda, who was part of the inquiry panel, had said it was, "essential that [Johri] undergo some form of gender sensitivity counseling/training." BCCI secretary Choudhary was more scathing in his remarks. "When a showcause indeed had to be issued, neither legally nor morally could it have been signed by a most tainted person himself," he wrote in reference to Johri signing the show cause notice to Pandya and Rahul.

"It is surprising that the matter is being sought to be disposed of hurriedly and surreptitiously as in the earlier case of sexual harassment. Legally, the inquiry can be conducted only in accordance with the provisions of the registered constitution," he added. Choudhary did not spare CoA chief Vinod Rai as well. "There is no way any society bound by rule of law will accept a verdict arrived at by a tainted person and the person who facilitated him to escape from the alleged grievous misconduct," he wrote, referring to Rai's alleged role in Johri getting a clean chit.

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