Hogwired All about sports The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order after hearing the plea of the BCCI for more time to implement the Lodha Committee reforms. This was stated in a report in the Indian Express. Meanwhile the Amicus Curiae for this case Gopal Subramaniam asked the Supreme Court to appoint an administrator for the cricket governing body or direct the Lodha Committee to appoint one for BCCI.
In a statement published in the Indian Express Subramanian considered the letter from Anurag Thakur President of BCCI to ICC Chief Shashank Manohar as tantamounting to interference. Mr Subramanian further asked how the ICC chief could be asked to implement Lodha Committee recommendations. According to Subramanian, the apex court had given ample time to BCCI to comply with the Lodha Committee recommendations. He felt that it was high time administrators were appointed and this could be done by Lodha Committee itself if need be. Mr Subramanian said the kind of disobedience showed by the BCCI “is contemptuous” in nature.
After the Supreme Court went through the minutes of the meetings with the 0BCCI, it came to the conclusion that in every stage the BCCI was defiant and obstructive.
Kapil Sibal, counsel for BCCI, said that the cricket governing body has implemented several recommendations of the Lodha Committee and sought more time so that BCCI could persuade the state associations to accept the remaining recommendations of the Supreme Court appointed Committee. According to Mr Sibal, BCCI requires the approval of three-fourths of its members to implement the remaining recommendations by the Lodha Committee. BCCI has already stated its disapproval of the ‘one-state-one-vote’ by the apex court-appointed committee.
Meanwhile, the president of BCCI refuted allegations of having tried to scuttle the implementation of the Lodha Committee recommendations. The BCCI president in his affidavit made it clear that he never asked ICC CEO Dave Richardson to state that he had not asked a letter from ICC. Anurag Thakur further clarified that he only wanted to know whether the ICC chief Shashank Manohar thought that the recommendations put forth by the apex court appointed committee interfered with the working of the BCCI.
It must be noted that the Supreme Court also stopped BCCI from releasing any funds to its state associations until they gave an unconditional undertaking to implement the reforms pertaining to its organisation proposed by the Lodha Committee. The Apex court in its order clearly stated that the state associations won’t receive any funds until a resolution is adopted to implement the reforms proposed by the Lodha Committee. The apex court further directed Thakur to file a personal affidavit containing details of the conversation he had with ICC CEO Richardson over Lodha Committee recommendations.
