Supreme Court pulls up BCCI over reluctance to accept Lodha panel's recommendations

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday gave an earful to the cashrich Indian cricket board for trying to “filibuster” the entire court exercise to usher in drastic administrative and structural changes in the board to make it more transparent and accountable to the cricketing public, and scoffing at its plea to allow ministers to hold elected posts of the board while resisting any CAG role in auditing its expenses.

A two-judge bench — comprising Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and Justice FMI Kalifullah — made this observation when several state associations such the Baroda Cricket Association and the Bombay Cricket Association opposed the Lodha panel suggestion to have one association, one vote per state.

Their lawyers Kapil Sibal and Shyam Divan argued that this recommendation was difficult to implement as it would entail equating cricket-playing states with non-cricketing ones.

“Everyone knew there was a courtappointed panel. You could have gone there and given your suggestions, but you did not. You were waiting in the wings. Now you come and say that this should not be done, send it back to the panel,” the CJI observed.

“You are trying to filibuster this exercise. The Lodha panel cost a lot of money to the BCCI. It is not an easy committee,” the CJI said, to some chuckles.

The CJI hinted that he would at the most refer one or two key points which the board was resisting to the Lodha panel for submitting its recommendations afresh within a fixed time frame. “This cannot go on forever.”

The CJI made these impatient remarks after hearing BCCI counsel KK Venugopal’s prima facie objections to several of the Lodha panel’s suggestions to eliminate the all-pervasive conflict of interest which permeates the entire BCCI administrative structure.

That includes the one person, one post rule, the 70-year age bar for contesting for the top BCCI posts, and the suggestion to keep out ministers and babus from the board.

Venugopal resisted the Lodha panel suggestion to have a CAG nominee on the board. That would place the BCCI at the risk of being suspended from the ICC, he contended. But the CJI shot down his objection with his scathing remarks.

“Can’t you have someone to point out your mistakes since you are discharging public functions? You want a free hand to deal with the hundreds of crores? Can’t you have someone under court orders to point out that there’s nothing irregular, unconscionable.”