The Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) has gotten into yet another controversy just ahead of the IPL 2026 match, possibly hosted in the same state, as the Bombay High Court has decided to halt the elections to the apex council of the MCA. The inclusion of 400 new members, among them the current President’s relative, has raised eyebrows.
Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad observed that the quick addition of 400 members created doubt and the court’s response was prompted by a petition which claimed that the Supreme Court’s guidelines had been flouted and the addition of multiple members was in favor of one party.
Kedar Jadhav files petition as MCA gets into a controversy
The petition submitted by the ex-Indian cricketer Kedar Jadhav and others states that the members who were added had no connections with cricket and their only purpose was to hold the MCA under individual control like a private company. The petitioners declared the election process to be illegal and strongly maintained their view that 400 voters had been wrongly included in the voter’s list.
Taking into account the illegal methods used to add the members, the court opted to chastise the addition of 400 new members without following the proper procedure.
As cited by News18: “In the circumstances of the case, this court cannot take a hands-off approach and let the elections scheduled for January 6 go ahead. The High Court should not allow the perpetuation of illegality,” the division bench stated, directing the electoral officer to stop the election until further notice.
Newbury’s IPL hosting dream is to be plagued by a fresh controversy.
For MCA the timing of this trouble could not have been worse as the board is going to host IPL 2026 matches in the near future. Most probably, either the Rajasthan Royals or the IPL defending champions, RCB will move their base to MCA Stadium in Pune for the upcoming season, and the organization could eventually reap huge profits from this.
The BCCI has a policy that is very strict, and the board may make the call and not allow the MCA to host games if the problems within are not resolved in a few days. The Royals’ home state board RCA faced a similar problem; now they could be without an IPL match as the team is on the verge of exiting from Jaipur.
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