Lodha committee report to focus on ‘purity of game’

Justice R.M. Lodha: "We know there is huge public expectation resting on us. We will ensure the game is played in its best spirits."

Giving final touches to the Supreme Court-appointed committee’s report on reforms in the BCCI and the Indian cricket administration, the former Chief Justice of India, R.M. Lodha, on Friday said the theme of the report remains the purity of the game.

Justice Lodha, the chairperson of the three-member committee, said the report would be first filed in the Supreme Court Registry on January 4. “Our first obligation is to the court,” Justice Lodha told The Hindu on the phone. The report may change the destiny of the game and its administration for the better. The committee, consisting of two other former Supreme Court judges Ashok Bhan and R.V. Raveendran, was set up by the court through a judgment delivered on January 22, 2015 to usher in reforms in the BCCI. Any decision by the committee would be “binding on the BCCI”, the court had said.

“Was giving final touches to the report... That [purity of the game] still remains the theme,” Justice Lodha said. He said there has been a lot of “speculation” about the report in the media.

The report culminates the panel’s exhaustive investigations into how the game is run in the country and what could be done to ensure that transparency and accountability is the rule and not the exception in the administration of cricket in India.

The committee would also present a second report on the alleged role of former IPL COO Sundar Raman in the 2013 IPL betting case.

The reports may subsequently come up for hearing before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, which had set up the committee while barring BCCI officials from enjoying commercial interests in the game.

Speaking to The Hindu early last year, shortly after he was appointed committee chairperson, Justice Lodha had expressed his firm commitment to cricket in its pristine form. “We [the committee] know there is huge public expectation resting on us. We will ensure the game is played in its best spirits. We will do our best,” Justice Lodha said.

The report on Monday is expected to reveal a mechanism to deal with conflict of interest situations, recommend measures to streamline BCCI elections, fix eligibility of candidates and criteria for disqualification and any other recommendations it sees fit in the BCCI functioning.