At a hearing on Monday before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, the Board of Control for Cricket in India hit out at the Supreme Court-appointed former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha-headed Committee. BCCI counsel Kapil Sibal said it seemed the panel wanted to “run cricket” in India.
Countering this, Supreme Court’s amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium described the constant to-and-fro shuffling of responsibility to implement the Lodha reforms between BCCI and its member State cricket associations as a “farce”, a “charade” in which “Mr. Jekyll is indeed Mr. Hyde.”
The Bench had also ordered a freeze on the disbursal of Rs. 16.73 crore each to the member associations.
“It is as if the Lodha Committee wants to run cricket and that is not the purpose of its formation by this court... The committee is going beyond the judgment,” Mr. Sibal submitted, adding the committee cannot dictate terms like the number of selectors.
“These are our administrative issues,” he said.
He submitted that, for example, the Lodha Committee reform for ‘One State One Vote’ is a “remedy worse than the disease.”
“One State One Vote will lead to greater corruption. You have taken away the votes of some of our founding members... those who have been deeply involved in cricket from the 1930s and given it to some States which have no infrastructure to conduct cricket. You have taken away a Bombay vote and given it to Arunachal. If you distribute votes according to territory, let’s say Nagaland where nobody is willing to spend for cricket, it will not work,” Mr. Sibal submitted.
Mr. Sibal said the BCCI has become the “popular number one villain” despite the fact that India is the “number one ODI team.”
“I have only one request... allow cricket to expand according to its own principles... Again, I repeat, I personally feel that the remedy will be worse than the disease... this the future will show,” Mr. Sibal submitted. He even offered to file a detailed affidavit highlighting the BCCI’s grouses and practical difficulties and differences concerning the Lodha reforms.
The Bench, however, concluded the hearing by reserving for final orders on a report filed by the Justice Lodha Committee to replace the current top BCCI office-bearers, who are acting as an impediment to the reforms.
“At every stage there has been defiance,” Chief Justice Thakur observed.
