BCCI given one day to accept all Lodha Committee recommendations

The BCCI has been asked by the Supreme Court to give an undertaking by Friday, October 7, that it will "unconditionally" implement all the court-approved recommendations of the Lodha Committee. If the board failed to provide such an undertaking, the Supreme Court indicated it would pass an order on Friday to replace the board's office bearers with a panel of administrators.

The court asked the BCCI's legal counsel Kapil Sibal to check with the board and respond by October 7; Sibal is understood to have asked for more time but the court refused.

"What do you want?" TS Thakur, the Chief Justice of India and head of the three-judge bench hearing the matter, said. "Either we pass orders tomorrow or you give us a statement that you will abide unconditionally by the recommendations and directions of the Lodha Committee."

The latest developments in the tussle between the BCCI and the Lodha Committee took place in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The court was hearing the BCCI's response to the status report filed by the Lodha Committee last week, which recommended that the BCCI office bearers be superseded because they were impeding the implementation of the recommendations passed by a Supreme Court order on July 18.

There was a dramatic turn of events towards the final half hour of the hearing. Sibal's argument that the BCCI needed approval from two thirds of its member associations, according to the Tamil Nadu Societies Act under which the board was incorporated, received sharp response from Chief Justice Thakur.

Thakur said the BCCI had been the "face" and "forefront" of defiance against the Lodha Committee's recommendations. "You are giving the lead to the associations," he said. "You are trying to obstruct the Lodha panel." His suggestion to the BCCI in response to its members' resistance was to either block their funding or to debar them.

At that point, Thakur gave the BCCI an ultimatum: agree to push through the recommendations, agree to discuss with the Lodha panel and "stop wasting our time."

The BCCI then asked for time until October 17, keeping in mind that the court will take a 11-day break next week, but the request was denied. Sibal was asked whether he could give the BCCI's undertaking of acceptance by Friday, and when he said it was not possible because the board needed approval from its state associations, he was told: If you don't implement the recommendations, we will pass the orders."

Justice Thakur reminded the BCCI and the state associations that their money was public money. He warned that funds would be stopped to states that did not want to accept the Lodha Committee's recommendations. When Sibal said the state associations had their own by-laws and the BCCI had no control over them, the court said: "If the associations are reluctant to reform, why do you continue to give them money? You are giving crores of money to them even as they refuse to reform?"

Sibal contended that halting payments to states would affect the domestic season - the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy had begun this morning. "Then there will be no domestic matches," Thakur was quoted by Hindu as saying. "If matches are to be conducted, they will be held in a transparent manner. Season or no season, we will not allow a penny to be wasted. Objectivity and transparency is more important than seasons."

At the start of the hearing on Thursday, the court heard submissions made by the amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium. If it were to approve the Lodha Committee's recommendation to supersede the BCCI office bearers, the court asked Subramanium, would there be eligibility criteria for the people comprising the panel of administrators, and whether they needed to be cricketers? He said there was no criteria as long as the new administrators were of impeccable stature and integrity.

Thakur then asked Sibal if the board's existing office bearers - the president, secretary, treasurer and join secretary - had any special skills. Sibal said BCCI president Anurag Thakur was a cricketer, having played one Ranji Trophy match for Himachal Pradesh.

At this point Vikas Mehta, the lawyer representing Cricket Association of Bihar, one of the petitioners in the hearing, intervened. He claimed that Anurag Thakur, while serving as president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association, had appointed himself chairman of selectors of the state team and played one Ranji Trophy match to fulfill the eligibility criteria set by the BCCI to become a national selector. Anurag Thakur eventually served as a junior national selector.

Highlighting an example of the BCCI going against the court and the Lodha Committee's directive, Subramanium said the board had transferred large sums of money - about INR 550 crore - last week to its state associations, despite not forming the disbursement policy mandated by the committee by the September 30 deadline. Subramanium said "the horse had bolted the stable" by the time the Committee found out about the transactions.

Sibal defended the payment saying it was routine business and not related to the future as claimed by the Lodha Committee.

The court was also told that ICC chief executive David Richardson had said the BCCI president Anurag Thakur had asked the ICC for a letter saying it would not allow any government nominee on the BCCI apex council. The Lodha Committee had recommended that one official from the Comptroller and Auditor General's office be part of the nine-member Apex Council, which would replace the existing BCCI working committee.