A court ordered the money to be paid. It showed only half the picture. Here is the other half.
Vinay Rao
A recent court order directing the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) to release nine years’ worth of Cricket Development Fund arrears to its affiliated private clubs has been widely welcomed by the beneficiaries. The judgment is careful, reasoned and legally sound. It decides precisely the issue that was placed before the court—whether a resolution passed in 2015 should be implemented.
The difficulty lies elsewhere.
The court was never asked to examine the larger questions surrounding that resolution. It was not invited to consider who was actually entitled to receive the money, whether the recipients had fulfilled their obligations under HCA’s own rules, whether the funds had ever been used for cricket development, or even what constitutes a “private club” under HCA’s governing documents.
Those questions remain unanswered—not because the court overlooked them, but because nobody placed them before it.
Who Actually Gets the Money?
The court has rightly directed payment to clubs as legal entities. That is entirely consistent with the law. But a legal entity does not receive or spend money; people do.
Over the last nine years, the management of many affiliated clubs has changed repeatedly. Secretaries who participated in the 2015 General Body meeting may no longer have any connection with those clubs. Office-bearers have been replaced. Committees have changed. In many cases, even the composition of the playing squads has undergone a complete transformation.
The players who represented those clubs in 2017, 2018, 2020 or 2022 often paid for their own equipment, coaching, travel and ground expenses because the promised development funds never reached them. Many have since retired, shifted clubs or abandoned the game altogether.
Yet the person who happens to occupy the secretary’s chair today will receive arrears accumulated over nine years—covering periods during which he may have had absolutely no role in the club’s affairs.
The players whose performances supposedly justified the existence of a Cricket Development Fund will receive nothing.
The court cannot be faulted for this outcome because nobody invited it to consider the practical implications of enforcing the resolution after nearly a decade.
What Exactly Is a “Private Club”?
This is perhaps the most fundamental question of all.
The court’s order directs payment to HCA’s “private clubs.” The 2015 General Body resolution uses the same expression. Both proceed on the assumption that the term carries an obvious and universally accepted meaning.
It does not.
Surprisingly, HCA’s own Bye-Laws do not define the expression “private club” anywhere.
The definitions section painstakingly explains every important term used in the administration of the Association—Administrator, Apex Council, Auditor, Chief Executive Officer, Electoral Officer, Ethics Officer, Match Official, Member, Ombudsman, Office Bearer, Player, President, Secretary, Treasurer, Vice-President and several others.
“Private club” is conspicuous by its absence.
Instead, the Bye-Laws recognise four distinct categories of Full Members—Member Clubs, Institutions, Institutional Clubs and District Cricket Associations.
The 2015 resolution, however, creates an entirely different classification. It provides cash grants to “private clubs” while supplying cricket equipment to institutions. Institutional Clubs and District Associations appear to fit neatly into neither category.
That raises an obvious question.
Of the 217 affiliated entities on HCA’s rolls, how many legally qualify as “private clubs” for the purpose of receiving these payments?
Neither the 2015 resolution, the Ombudsman’s order nor the recent judgment attempts to answer that question.
Consequently, substantial sums are now set to be released to an undefined category of recipients under a term that finds no place in HCA’s own governing documents.
That omission is more than semantic. It goes to the very heart of identifying who is legally entitled to receive public-facing cricket development funds.
What the Court Was Not Told
Perhaps the most significant omission concerns the findings of Justice L. Nageswara Rao, the former Supreme Court Judge appointed to examine HCA’s affairs through a Single Member Committee.
His report examined the Cricket Development Fund in considerable detail.
Its conclusions were unambiguous.
Justice Nageswara Rao recorded that several clubs received annual grants of three lakh rupees despite possessing neither cricket grounds nor qualified coaches. He unequivocally described the payments as distributions made in fulfilment of election promises rather than genuine investments in cricket development.
That report exists. It forms part of the official record.
Yet it was never placed before the court during these proceedings.
Equally significant are HCA’s own Bye-Laws.
Rule 4(2) expressly provides that any member failing to submit proper accounts relating to grants received from HCA forfeits its entitlement to further grants until compliance is achieved.
Rules 34(4) and 34(5) impose a mandatory obligation upon HCA’s Auditor to verify how every member has utilised Association funds and to submit a Compliance Report before the General Body.
These provisions have existed since 2015.
They do not appear to have been brought to the court’s attention.
Had they been examined, another important question might have arisen—whether clubs that failed to account for previous grants remained eligible to receive fresh payments at all.
The Memorandum of Association raises further issues.
Clause 2(t) commits HCA to protecting and assisting cricketers as the primary stakeholders of the game.
Clause 2(u)(ii) contemplates direct financial assistance for the benefit of players.
Clause 2(v) envisages expenditure on cricket infrastructure, grounds, coaching, equipment and the overall development of the sport.
Against that backdrop, a Cricket Development Fund distributed to clubs that allegedly possess neither grounds nor coaches, and which have not demonstrated cricket-related utilisation of earlier grants, inevitably raises serious questions about whether the scheme conforms to HCA’s own constitutional objectives.
Those questions deserved consideration.
They were never placed before the court.
The court decided the case on the material available before it.
The material itself was incomplete. (To be concluded)
