Vinay Rao
The previous piece on HCA’s Development Fund circular drew responses from Sunder bhai, Vikram bhai, and Ajmal bhai — familiar names to anyone who has followed HCA’s internal politics over the years. Their objections deserve direct answers. But first, a word on something else.
This e-paper will not entertain any demand seeking to reveal who Vinay Rao is. This writer is not naive about how such requests work in HCA’s ecosystem. The identity question is not about engaging with the argument — it is about finding the person behind it. This column has no intention of falling prey to threats, intimidation, or the notorious SMS tricks that have historically been used to silence inconvenient voices in Hyderabad cricket. If the facts published are wrong, point to the facts. The byline is irrelevant to that exercise.
Now, to the substance.
Sunder bhai and Vikram bhai ask: How many times must the same information be furnished?
A fair question. But it leads directly to a more uncomfortable one.
Under Section 9 of the Telangana Societies Registration Act, 2001, every registered society — and every HCA-affiliated cricket club is one — is already legally required to submit a list of its Managing Committee members, names, addresses, and officers entrusted with management, to the Registrar of Societies within fifteen days of its Annual General Body meeting. Every year. Without being asked. Without a circular.
Under Section 12, every society is required to maintain audited accounts, records of all income and expenditure, assets and liabilities, and copies of audit reports. Under Section 17, the balance sheet and auditor’s report must be placed before members at every AGM.
These are not HCA’s demands. These are statutory obligations under Telangana law that every club already owes to the Registrar of Societies — independent of anything HCA asks. So, the real question is not why HCA is asking again. The real question is this: if these details are being submitted annually to the Registrar as the law requires, why is sharing the same information with HCA being treated as an extraordinary burden? The data exists. It has already been prepared. It takes minutes to forward.
And if it is not being submitted to the Registrar either, that is a far more serious conversation that goes well beyond this column.
Vikram bhai asks: What financial accounts are being sought when clubs have zero balances?
Here, the argument collapses on itself entirely. If clubs have nil balances and zero financial activity, one question follows immediately: why are they seeking Development Funds at all? Development Funds exist to support active cricket operations — grounds, kit, coaching, and tournaments. A club with nothing in its accounts and nothing to show for years of affiliation has to answer a more basic question first: what exactly is being developed?
If, on the other hand, clubs did incur legitimate expenses during this period — ground maintenance, kit, travel, league participation — those expenses exist on the books. Submit the accounts, show the expenditure, and demand reimbursement. That is the correct response to funds not being disbursed. Not resistance to documentation. A club cannot simultaneously claim poverty and resist the paperwork that would prove it.
Either way, the accounts need to be submitted. There is no version of this argument where they do not.
On Justice Nageswara Rao’s report
Ajmal bhai, Sunder bhai, Vikram bhai — all familiar with HCA’s governance history. Justice Rao’s report found 80 clubs controlled by just 12 individuals and their families, bloc voting engineered across election after election, and secretaries installed as proxies to circumvent conflict of interest rules. Clubs were barred from voting and contesting. Names were named. Patterns were documented.
If those findings were wrong, the Supreme Court was the place to say so. It remains available. Nobody went. The decision not to challenge a 46-page report that named clubs and patterns with specificity is the most eloquent statement of all — far more eloquent than any WhatsApp message.
On the LBW analogy
Vikram bhai offered it. The writer will finish it. DRS was introduced precisely because the naked eye misses things, because some appeals are made in bad faith, and because the game is better served by a system that goes beyond first impressions. HCA is now attempting to build that system — a verified, current record of who runs what, a clean voter roll before a presidential election, an institutional framework that does not depend on word of mouth and informal networks.
Every club with clean hands should be the first to welcome it. Resistance to a review system is rarely about the system itself.
The bottom line
Compliant clubs have nothing to fear from this circular. The Societies Act already requires everything HCA is now asking for. The accounts already need to exist. The committee details already need to be filed annually with the Registrar. If they have been — submit them to HCA and the matter is closed in an afternoon.
If they have not been, the objection is not really with HCA’s circular at all. It is with transparency itself. And that, more than anything else written here, is what the reader should note.
