Governance at HCA comes to a knot

Nine years, five committees, endless allegations — and accountability still missing

Special Correspondent

There comes a point when “governance failure” becomes too polite a description. Hyderabad Cricket Association has crossed that point a long time ago.

What is unfolding at the HCA is no longer merely an unpleasant internal dispute between rival factions, competing office-bearers or disgruntled clubs. It is a deeply disturbing institutional saga in which judicial interventions, committees headed by retired judges, criminal investigations, anti-corruption proceedings, allegations of financial irregularities and even a money-laundering investigation have accumulated over the years — while accountability continues to move at a glacial pace.

And now the Telangana High Court has effectively said what Hyderabad cricket’s followers have been watching for years: the association is in a mess.

That is not the description of a disgruntled club member. It is the observation of the High Court.

In its April 24, 2026 judgment in the Safilguda Cricket Club case, Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka recorded a long and troubled history of judicial intervention, repeated appointments of administrators and supervisory authorities, reports by eminent retired judges and the continuing resurfacing of disputes over governance, transparency and financial discipline. The Court went further, referring to the “pathetic circumstances” surrounding the administration and activities of the HCA and the “kind of the mess” in which the association finds itself.

One would imagine that after such an indictment, somebody would have to answer.

But that is precisely where the HCA story becomes almost surreal.

Nine years. Five committees. Multiple investigations. And accountability still seems to be waiting in the pavilion.

Since 2017, Hyderabad cricket has repeatedly been subjected to judicial supervision. Justice Anil R. Dave and Justice G.V. Seethapathy were appointed administrators by the Telangana High Court. The Supreme Court later appointed the Justice Nisar Ahmad Kakru Committee and subsequently the Justice L. Nageswara Rao Single Member Committee. The Telangana High Court then brought in Justice P. Naveen Rao to supervise the association.

Reports were produced. Irregularities were flagged. Complaints multiplied. Disputes continued. Allegations of financial impropriety, election manipulation, selection-related wrongdoing, lack of transparency and administrative misconduct kept returning.

Yet the cycle never seems to end.

A committee comes.

A committee reports.

A controversy erupts.

A case is filed.

Another committee is appointed.

And the game continues.

Except it is not really the game that is being protected. It is the system around the game.

That is the scandal.

The High Court’s latest intervention makes the point brutally clear. The Court said the continued resort by stakeholders to judicial forums itself reflected a deficit of confidence that routine assurances had failed to bridge. It found that reports of Justice Naveen Rao reflected a disorganised administrative system, obstruction in his functioning and a non-cooperative approach by sections of the Apex Council. The Court also observed that certain vested interests were affecting the functioning of the association.

This is not a minor administrative disagreement. This is an institution repeatedly requiring judicial handholding simply to perform functions that a properly governed cricket association should perform on its own.

Five interventions. Still no institutional cure.

What does that tell us?

Either every committee appointed over these years was spectacularly incapable of identifying the problem — which is difficult to believe given the calibre of the people involved — or the problem is not the absence of reports.

The problem is the absence of consequences.

That distinction is crucial.

Reports are meaningless if they become historical documents rather than instruments of accountability. Investigations are meaningless if they never reach their logical conclusion. Committees are meaningless if their findings can be buried beneath another round of litigation, factional warfare and procedural manoeuvring.

A cricket association cannot be run on the principle that everyone is innocent forever because every investigation is still “ongoing”.

Nor can it claim reform merely because another committee has been appointed.

The real scoreboard is not on the cricket field. It is the accountability scoreboard. And it reads: nine years, countless allegations, remarkably little finality.

The latest High Court order is particularly damning because the Court did not merely wash its hands of the matter. It refused to leave the association to its own devices.

Instead, it directed the Telangana Director General of Police to constitute a Special Investigation Team of the CB-CID, headed by an Additional Commissioner-rank IPS officer, to investigate the administrative, managerial and financial affairs of the HCA. The SIT has been empowered to examine material contained in earlier reports and collect further evidence.

Think about that for a moment.

After years of committees, the High Court has had to call in another investigating mechanism to examine what earlier mechanisms had already examined.

That is not reform.

That is institutional exhaustion.

And the financial questions are not trivial.

Earlier forensic scrutiny had identified irregularities, including a reported ₹2.68 crore discrepancy in a sample review covering 2015-17. The court record also refers to financial concerns of considerable magnitude raised by earlier administrators and reports.

There have also been investigations into alleged corruption in player selection, including the widely reported allegation involving a ₹9 lakh bribe demand in connection with selection of a player for a state team. That allegation remains a matter for the investigating authorities and courts to establish, but the very existence of such cases should have been enough to trigger an institutional reckoning.

Instead, Hyderabad cricket has perfected another art altogether: surviving scandal.

And then there is the money trail.

The High Court record notes that the Enforcement Directorate had initiated proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act on the basis of FIRs and investigation reports relating to alleged irregularities in the utilisation of HCA funds.

That should make every serious cricket administrator sit up.

A money-laundering investigation is not a neighbourhood quarrel. It is a statutory investigation into the suspected proceeds and movement of crime-related funds. Whether anyone is ultimately guilty is for the competent agencies and courts to establish. But once such an investigation exists, pretending that the HCA’s problems are merely “internal issues” becomes laughable.

The association cannot demand autonomy when autonomy is convenient and judicial protection when its administration collapses.

Nor can the BCCI continue to behave as though an affiliated state association is somebody else’s headache. The HCA may be administratively autonomous, but it operates within Indian cricket’s institutional ecosystem and its failures inevitably damage the credibility of the game.

The BCCI’s responsibility cannot end with sending observers, withholding funds, appointing committees or waiting for another court order.

If an affiliated association repeatedly reaches the High Court, repeatedly attracts allegations of financial and administrative wrongdoing and repeatedly requires judicial supervision, the parent body has a responsibility to ask the most uncomfortable question of all:

Why has this been allowed to continue for so long?

And the HCA’s own office-bearers must answer an even more uncomfortable question:

Why should anyone trust an administration that apparently requires a retired judge to supervise it before it can function properly?

The Court has now continued Justice P. Naveen Rao’s supervision precisely because, in the words of the judgment, the association is in a “mess” and there is excessive involvement of vested interests. The Court has empowered the Single Member Committee to oversee cricketing affairs, administration and structural reforms while the criminal investigation proceeds.

That is an extraordinary indictment of an elected cricket administration.

An elected body is supposed to demonstrate that it can govern.

The HCA has instead demonstrated that it needs to be governed.

There is an even bigger tragedy here.

While administrators fight over positions, clubs fight over legitimacy and office-bearers fight over control, it is the young cricketer who gets forgotten.

The player who spends years training for a place in the state team does not care which faction controls the Apex Council. He wants a transparent selection process.

The parent who spends money on coaching does not care which committee wins the latest legal battle. He wants to know that talent, not influence, determines selection.

The club that invests in developing players does not want another circular. It wants a credible system.

The people of Telangana do not need another committee.

They need consequences.

And that is where the HCA’s record becomes impossible to defend.

You cannot repeatedly claim that everything is under control when the High Court repeatedly has to intervene.

You cannot boast of reforms when earlier reports remain unresolved.

You cannot invoke autonomy while depending on judicial supervision.

You cannot invoke cricket’s prestige while allowing governance controversies to repeatedly overshadow the sport.

And you certainly cannot expect people to believe that everything is normal when the state’s highest court has described the administration in such extraordinarily harsh terms.

Enough of committees. Enough of excuses. Enough of factional theatrics.

The time has come for every investigating agency involved to demonstrate that these investigations actually mean something.

If allegations are false, establish that conclusively.

If allegations are substantiated, prosecute those responsible.

If office-bearers have violated the law, let the law take its course.

If financial wrongdoing is established, recover the money.

If selection was manipulated, punish those responsible.

If conflicts of interest existed, expose them.

If records were suppressed or governance obstructed, establish responsibility.

And if nobody is guilty, say so publicly and close the cases.

What is unacceptable is the endless grey zone in which allegations remain alive for years, investigations remain “underway”, committees keep changing and the same institutional ecosystem continues to function.

That is not justice.

That is not governance.

And it certainly is not cricket administration.

The Telangana High Court has done what it can within the law. It has ordered a fresh investigation, continued judicial supervision and demanded structural reform. It has explicitly stated that the investigation must determine guilt or innocence in accordance with law.

Now the ball is firmly in the court of the investigating agencies, the HCA leadership and the BCCI.

They cannot keep passing it around.

Hyderabad cricket has spent nearly a decade producing committees, reports, allegations, counter-allegations and litigation.

It is time it produced something far more important: accountability.

Because the most embarrassing statistic in Hyderabad cricket today is not a batting average, a bowling figure or a championship record.

It is this:

Nine years of scrutiny — and still no convincing end to the story.

That is not a governance crisis anymore.

That is a governance failure.

And everyone who has held a position of authority while this mess has continued — the office-bearers, the administrators, the regulators and the institutions that repeatedly watched from the sidelines — needs to stop pretending that this is somebody else’s problem.

The players deserve better.

Hyderabad cricket deserves better.

And frankly, after nine years, the public deserves answers.