Rajkot (PTI): Rahul Dravid will continue to remain in the position of India's head coach till the upcoming T20 World Cup in June this year, confirmed BCCI secretary Jay Shah.

Dravid's contract ended after the ODI World Cup final last year, but he was asked to continue in his role along with other support staff for the December-January tour to South Africa without finalising the tenure.

But Shah said he held an initial talk with Dravid here before arriving at the decision to retain the former captain's services till the ICC showpiece to be held in the West Indies and the USA.

"After the (2023) World Cup, Rahul bhai had to leave for the South Africa tour immediately. We did not get to meet in between which finally happened today," Shah said here on the sidelines of the renaming function of the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Wednesday night.

"Why are you worried about a contract for such a senior person like Rahul Dravid? Rahul bhai will remain the coach in the T20 World Cup," Shah asserted.

However, Shah indicated that they will hold a few more rounds of discussions ahead of the marquee event.

"I will speak with him whenever there is time, there are back-to-back series happening right now. They were in South Africa, then there was a (T20I) series against Afghanistan (at home) and now England. We did not get to speak in between at all," he added.

Shah said the IPL franchises will have to comply with workload management guidelines set by the BCCI for the centrally contracted players.

"This is the BCCI's mandate. The BCCI is the supreme body and whatever it decides the franchises will have to follow we are above the franchises," he said.

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New Delhi (PTI): Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra has also approached the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025.

Meanwhile, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan has listed for hearing on April 16 ten other petitions, including the one filed by AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, challenging the validity of the law.

Samajwadi Party MP from Sambhal, Zia-ur-Rahman Barq, had recently also filed a plea on the issue in the apex court.

Moitra, who filed her plea on April 9, has said the controversial amendment not only suffered from serious procedural lapses but also violated several fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.

“It is submitted that the violation of parliamentary practices during the law-making process has contributed to the unconstitutionality of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025,” the plea said.

“Procedurally, the Chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee flouted parliamentary rules and practices both at the stage of consideration and adoption of the draft report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf Amendment Bill and at the stage of presentation of the said report before Parliament,” it said.

The plea said that dissenting opinions from the opposition MPs were reportedly redacted without justification from the final report presented in Parliament on February 13, 2025.

Such actions undermined the deliberative process of Parliament and violated established norms as outlined in authoritative parliamentary procedure manuals, it said.

The plea said the new law allegedly infringed upon Articles 14 (equality before the law), 15(1) (non-discrimination), 19(1)(a) and (c) (freedom of speech and association), 21 (right to life and personal liberty), 25 and 26 (freedom of religion), 29 and 30 (minority rights), and Article 300A (right to property) of the Constitution.

Moitra sought striking down of the Act in its entirety, citing its procedural irregularities and substantive violations of the Constitution.

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, AAP leader Amanatullah Khan, Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, Arshad Madani, Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema, Anjum Kadari, Taiyyab Khan Salmani, Mohammad Shafi, Mohammed Fazlurrahim and RJD leader Manoj Kumar Jha have also moved the top court on the issue.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Congress MPs Imran Pratapgarhi and Mohammad Jawed are other key petitioners in the case.