The first task of the four-member Committee of Administrators (COA), comprising former CAG Vinod Rai; writer and historian Ramachandra Guha; IDFC MD Vikram Limaye and former India women’s captain Diana Edulji — will be to get the BCCI to fall in line with the terms of the Justice Lodha Committee report and the Supreme Court judgment.
The Board will have to adopt the MoA and Rules and Regulations as specified in Annexure-A of the Lodha panel’s report. The State and member associations will need to amend their Constitutions/By-laws suitably.
The BCCI is a registered body under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, and its members — other than the Railways, Services, All India Universities (all recommended to be relegated as associate members) — are registered under the Companies Act or its State Registrar of Societies.
The BCCI’s full members have long held that they function as per the direction given by clubs and individual members around which their associations’ foundation is based. To amend the by-laws, therefore, a two-third or three-fourth majority is required.
The full members feel bitter about a number of aspects of the recommendations, particularly those related to term and tenure of elected office bearers, restrictions on eligibility, the formation of player associations, replacing the working committee with an apex council, reconstituting the selection committee and empowering the CEO.
BCCI CEO Rahul Johri will soon submit a list of recommendations the BCCI has complied with; it will be just a handful and that’s the reason the Supreme Court removed Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke from their posts as president and secretary.
The COA is likely to find impediments in its path as it attempts to enforce the Lodha Committee recommendations.
