HCA ombudsman restores cricket club to T high court advocates assn

Hyderabad: The Telangana high court advocates association will now have an official cricket club, which will have voting rights at Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA), thanks to an order from Justice V Eswaraiah, ethics officer of HCA, who also holds the additional charge of ombudsman.
Justice Eswaraiah passed the order on June 13, declaring that advocate K Rajeswara Rao, claiming himself to be secretary of AP high court advocates cricket association club, has no right to represent the Telangana HC advocates association or its institutional cricket club.

Advocates Assn Entitled
“Rajeswara Rao does not represent any institution. He has got nothing to do with high court club. Telangana HC advocates association, represented by its secretary, is the sole entity that is entitled to be recognised by HCA,” Justice Eswaraiah said.
Just because some officials or CEO of HCA passed an erroneous order in the past recognising Rajeswara Rao’s club as a non-institutional club, that error cannot be perpetuated, Justice Eswaraiah said in his order while directing HCA to immediately correct its records and enter name of HC advocates association.
With this, the HC advocates association can now vote in HCA elections and be on a par with RBI, LIC, HPS, etc., which have their own institutional cricket clubs.
The fracas started when some individuals changed the address of the club to a private residence in Adarsh Nagar, started drawing the benefits and privileges of the club like voting rights and annual HCA grant of 5 lakh, free complimentary passes to watch cricket matches. They even claimed that theirs was the official HC club affiliated to HCA.
‘Realised Open Fraud’
After many years, the HC advocates association realised the folly and appealed to HCA to restore its institutional club to it. It was then they realised that this open fraud being perpetrated in the name of HC institutional club had some invisible supporters within the HCA whose connivance was principal reason for fraud to continue so long.
The advocates association approached the high court last year and urged it to restore its club to it. The HC directed the advocates association to make a fresh representation to HCA to restore the cricket club to it.
Accordingly, the HCA stopped extending the benefits to the club that was said to be existing at Adarsh Nagar.
Rao Approaches HCA
Stating that he was aggrieved with the HCA decision, Rajeswara Rao approached the HCA ombudsman complaining about the HCA’s decisions. “Ours is the HCA recognised club and hence all the benefits should continue,” he argued.
However, advocates association objected to his claims. “We even filed a police complaint against the hijacking of our club,” the advocates association representatives said.