9 years each at BCCI, state for office-bearers

The state associations of the Board of Control for Cricket in India ( BCCI) that lost their voting rights and were reduced to being associate members demanded a recall of the Supreme Court order following the recent retirement of TS Thakur as chief justice.

A Thakur-led bench had dismissed repeated attempts by these bodies to re-agitate the issue even after the court’s July 2016 order asking BCCI to implement measures aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in its functioning. A review plea has already been dismissed.

As the BCCI resisted implementing the order, the Thakur bench sacked BCCI chief Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke and sought to name interim administrators. Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud of that threemember bench are part of the new one, now headed by justice Dipak Misra.

Buoyed by this, BCCI’s Baroda, Himachal and Maharashtra associations demanded a recall of the 2016 ruling through senior advocate Kapil Sibal and attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, the latter appearing for the tri-services (armed forces), railways and the Association of Indian Universities Rohatgi argued that the three state bodies could only have bureaucrats or ministers as office bearers, which wasn’t permissible under the court order.

After hearing Sibal and Rohatgi, the bench said it would first address the matter of appointing a team of interim administrators to oversee BCCI before taking up other issues. Amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium handed a sealed cover of nine names to the bench, which said it would appoint less than nine administrators and hoped the list wouldn’t contain names of people above 70.

Subramanium said some were indeed above 70 as there were few with the requisite experience, an argument that BCCI has advanced to retain its old guard. These issues will be taken up on Tuesday.

However, the bench clarified that the nine-year bar on holding office will not be counted cumulatively. This will requalify some state office bearers who would have been disqualified for spending nine years in both BCCI and state bodies. It additionally prescribes a three-year cooling off period for those seeking to contest again.