Demanding institutional integrity from the BCCI, the Supreme Court classified the Board’s administration of cricket in India as a public function.
However, a Bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Fakir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla said the BCCI did not come under the definition of ‘State’ under Article 12, which means a public body.
“BCCI is a very important institution that discharges important public functions. Demands of institutional integrity are, therefore, heavy and need to be met suitably in larger public interest,” Justice Thakur wrote in his judgment.
The court said the BCCI’s functioning cannot be called a private activity as the Board monopolises national cricket with the “tacit” support of the government. It said how players chosen by the BCCI were later recognised with Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan and prestigious medals. It said the Board sets the standards and norms of selection of players for the national team.
The Board had the power to make dreams come true or make them end up in smoke, the apex court observed.
With all these powers, the court observed, the BCCI’s public function should not be compromised for individuals as “individuals are birds of passage while institutions are forever.”
The court dismissed the argument of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for BCCI president-in-exile N. Srinivasan, portraying IPL as a “commercial venture” of the BCCI and a platform for Indian and international cricketers “to make a living from the sport.” This argument, the court said, was “neither here nor there.”
“No one has found fault with IPL as a format, nor is there any challenge to the wisdom of BCCI in introducing this format for the benefit of cricketers or for its own benefit,” the apex court said.
The question, the judgment asks, is “whether the BCCI can afford to see the game lose its credibility in the eyes of those who watch it, by allowing an impression to gather ground that what goes on in the name of the game is no more than a farce because of sporting frauds like betting, match fixing and the like.”
“Can the BCCI live with the idea of the game being seen only as a means to cheat the unsuspecting and gullible spectators watching the proceedings whether in the stadium or on the television with the passion one rarely sees in any other sporting enterprise,” Justice Thakur wrote in the 138-page verdict.
It said that unless the BCCI cleans up its act, its “commercial plans for its own benefit and the benefit of the players are bound to blow up in smoke once the public gets to know that some business interests have hijacked the game for their own ends or that the game is no longer the game they know or love because of frauds on and off the field.”
