A majority of the BCCI’s members saw the reforms process coming once the Justice Lodha Committee submitted its recommendations to the Supreme Court (SC) in January.
The Committee first articulated its views in a 300-page report after interacting with 72 individuals from a cross section of the society that was associated with the game. It came to a conclusion that radical reforms were needed to clean up an administrative mechanism that short changed the cricket fan.
After hearing the BCCI’s views, the SC endorsed almost all of the Committee’s recommendations. It modified the proposal pertaining to the nature of live broadcast of home internationals, and thereafter the Committee gave its consent to changing the IPL governing council’s composition by withdrawing two positions for the franchises on the council.
After validating the recommendations some months back, the SC mandated the Committee to oversee its implementation in four to six months. The Committee gave the BCCI two sets of timelines to complete the process, the primary aspect of which was the adoption the new Memorandum of Association (MOA) and Rules and Regulations.
DisquietThere was palpable disquiet among the BCCI’s members; the thought of giving up all power to a new band of administrators was not acceptable.
In the beginning, most of the associations began to feel that the BCCI’s reply and objections, and the intervention applications by several member units, would bail them out. The BCCI’s rationale that it was registered with the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act and therefore answerable to it did not wash with the apex court.
The fallout included the resignation of Shashank Manohar as BCCI president, citing a lack of competence to deal with the changed circumstances. After his exit, Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke began dealing with what was the toughest phase in the Board’s near-nine-decade history.
The BCCI contested the One State, One Member, One Vote rule that gave full membership to the North East States. It also objected to positions for a male and female representative in the apex council and the nomination of a CAG representative in the apex council, which it felt was government interference.
Point of contentionThe restriction to the terms of office-bearers, specifically a cooling of period of three years after the first three year term and a maximum term of nine years, was a strong point of contention, as was the recommendation barring ministers, government servants (modified to public servants in the Supreme Court order of July 18) and a member of another national sports body from occupying posts.
With the BCCI expressing its misgivings in a number of ways and not looking like it will stick to the deadlines, the Lodha Committee was categorical in its status report to the SC on Wednesday.
Item No. 6 of the status report said: “While the office bearers of the BCCI gave assurances to the SC committee … that they would cooperate …the events over the past weeks have shown that this is not the case. Directions of this Hon’ble court have been ignored, the directives of the committee have been breached and member associations have not been duly intimated about the directions of the committee and the timelines fixed by it.’’
With the status report coming down ruthlessly hard on the BCCI and its leadership, the Emergent Special General Meeting here on Friday, will probably see a subdued BCCI adopting the new MOA and Rules and Regulations.
Perhaps it did not take two Chief Justices of India seriously.
