Supreme Court directs BCCI to respond to Lodha report

Observing that the decks must be cleared for a complete reform in its working, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Board of Control for Cricket in India to accept and implement the Justice Lodha panel’s recommendations.

The Justice Lodha report had been distributed among members and a meeting of its legal committee fixed for February 7, he saidBut the Bench refused to be snowballed by the Board’s list of “complications”.

This is likely to come as a blow to the BCCI, who have given indications previously that they were against some of the main recommendations of the Lodha report.

Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, who appeared for the BCCI, sought four weeks to consider the Lodha panel’s report submitted on January 4.

Ask your client to take a strict view of the recommendations. They had invited people and have done extensive deliberations with all stakeholders.

“The best thing is to fall in line and follow the suggestions to save the trouble”.

“We will take an easy way out”. They will help you in implementing the recommendations. “The recommendations are straightforward, understandable and rational… if you can’t do it, we will ask the committee to steer you”, he said. Naphade also said the BCCI had to consult their state associations, but the bench made it clear that there should not be any difficulty in accepting the recommendations as ample opportunity had been given to all stakeholders over a long period and their views were taken into consideration before preparing the final report.

The court said that there could be no digression from carrying out the recommendations unless the cricketing body tells something enormous that can’t be done.

A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Ibrahim Kalifulla told senior counsel Shekar Naphade, appearing for the BCCI, “the report is straight, rational and understandable”. Privately, the BCCI officials agree that worse is in store from the Supreme Court going by the observations of Chief Justice TS Thakur yesterday but maintain they will not give up their right to fight legally.

Naphade cited historical reasons to justify multiple representation of Maharashtra and Gujarat in BCCI. The next hearing has been slated for March 3. “While in office, the ICC Chairman will not be allowed to hold any post with any Member Board and may be re-elected at the expiry of the term with a maximum limit of three terms”.

It had also recommended bringing BCCI under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, legalisation of betting, uniformity in structure of state associations, and a one-state-one-member (vote) pattern for BCCI’s governing body.