The BCCI’s full, associate and affiliate members, without going deep into the report of the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee on ‘Reforms In Cricket’, authorised secretary Anurag Thakur to file an affidavit in the court, pointing to the “anomalies and difficulties” in implementing the recommendations.
At a special general meeting here on Friday, the members were also advised to file independent intervention applications on the recommendations they would find difficult to comply with.
Constitutional lawyer K.K. Venugopal will appear for the BCCI before the Bench on March 4.
Since most members submitted their views on the recommendations on January 4, the president did not deem it necessary for them to do it again.
Without being a party to an elaborate discussion on any feature of the Supreme Court Committee-initiated report on the ‘Reforms In Cricket’, the members, associate members and affiliate members authorised the BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court (by March 3) regarding the “anomalies and difficulties” encountered in the implementation of the Justice Lodha committee recommendations.
At the outset, BCCI president Shashank Manohar told the special general body at the Cricket Centre here on Friday that since the majority of the members have already presented their views in writing on the Lodha Committee recommendations, and they have been read and dissected by the senior BCCI officials, there was no need to go through them again.
The members were also advised to file intervention applications, if they so desire, stating their observations on the recommendations they feel will be difficult to comply with.
Smart move “I think it was a smart and wise move. The president conducted the meeting well. He did not want any confusion to arise in the event of each member being given a chance to make his observations on the Lodha recommendations.
“The president said it was not a question of whether the BCCI agrees or disagrees with the recommendations. He said there are many parts in the report that need to be discussed and explained,” said a member from the West Zone.
Clearly, there are many features of the 300-page report the BCCI president, himself a very senior lawyer, would discuss with the Legal Committee members and the constitutional lawyer K.K. Venugopal before an affidavit is filed in the Supreme Court.
It’s not known how many would opt to file the intervention application, but the three government-side members — Railways, Services and All India Universities — seem to have asked for guidance from the BCCI to find the right legal people to file their intervention applications.
The Lodha report has recommended that the above three, along with the Cricket Club of India and National Cricket Club (Kolkata), be relegated to associate members with their voting rights withdrawn.
The three member units from Maharashtra (Mumbai, Maharashtra and Vidarbha) and Gujarat (Gujarat, Baroda and Saurashtra), too, have been asked to choose one among them as a member with voting rights.
The Lodha report has made it clear that “in States with multiple existing members, the BCCI shall recognise one of them to represent the State, while the remaining shall become associate members.”
Revenue-sharing formula Reliable sources revealed that the BCCI president explained the need to rework the revenue-sharing formula, saying the BCCI should not benefit at the countries’ expense.
He asked the members if they would agree to the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) getting Rs.200 crore because it has won the Ranji Trophy 40 times and Uttar Pradesh a bigger amount as it was the biggest State in India, and the others like Goa and Baroda receiving only Rs. 10 lakh.
