Franchises' nominees on IPL governing council could cause conflict, says court

The Supreme Court has asked the Lodha Committee to re-examine the recommendation relating to the presence of two franchise representatives on the IPL Governing Council. The BCCI had strongly objected to the recommendation, saying that the presence of franchises' representatives would amount to conflict of interest as the Governing Council takes influential decisions that directly affect the teams.

"The BCCI contends that the induction of the nominees from the franchisees is impermissible because important matters like players-retention policy, posting of umpires for IPL matches, etc are deliberated upon and decided by the Governing Council itself," the two-judge bench of the court said in its judgement on Monday, which made it mandatory for the BCCI to implement virtually all the recommendations proposed by the Lodha Committee. "There is therefore an evident conflict of interest between the nominees of the IPL franchisees on the one hand and their role as members of the Governing Council on the other."

In May, former BCCI president Shashank Manohar had expanded on why the BCCI felt the presence of the franchises' nominees on the Governing Council amounted to clear conflict of interest. Manohar pointed out that one big reason the BCCI got itself embroiled in a slew of legal issues was the presence of former BCCI president N Srinivasan, the owner of Chennai Super Kings, on the IPL Governing Council. "I should not judge on a matter when I have an interest in it. That is the basic rule of law," Manohar said.

Having the franchise nominees on the Governing Council would amount to violating the principles of "institutional integrity", the BCCI legal counsel had said during the court hearings.

The objective of this particular recommendation, the Lodha committee had said, was to bring more independent voices to the Governing Council. The council, it said, should comprise of nine members: three ex-officio members (the BCCI secretary, treasurer, and the CEO), two representatives of the members of BCCI to be elected by the General Body, two nominees of the franchises, one nominee who is the Comptroller and Auditor General's representative on the Apex Council (the proposed body that would replace the Working Committee, the BCCI's highest decision-making body), and one nominee from the players' association. It was also recommended that the nominees of the franchises rotate annually.

The court pointed out that "independent voices" was the objective, but contended that the Lodha Committee was not definitive on whether the IPL franchises needed to have a seat on the Governing Council. "All that is said is that the Governing Council [so far] has denied any role to the franchisee companies, and that there is no independent voice in the Governing Council which is dominated by the full members of the BCCI and two former cricketers," the court said.

The court did concede, however, that there was an element of conflict, as raised by Manohar and BCCI. "The Committee does not appear to have addressed the question of conflict of interest in the event IPL franchisees place two nominees in the Governing Council. There is prima facie a possibility of conflict of interest arising out of [this]. Be that as it may, we do not consider it necessary to finally pronounce on this aspect, which can be better left to the Committee to re-examine in the light of what has been observed earlier."

The court made it clear that if the Lodha Committee were to rule out the possibility of conflict of interest on re-examing the recommendation, it would accept it. "We make it clear that if upon reconsideration of the matter the Committee takes a view that the induction of the nominees of the franchisees will not result in any conflict of interest, it shall be free to stick to its recommendations in which event the recommendations shall be deemed to have been accepted by this Court to be formalised and carried out in such manner as the Committee may decide."