BCCI Affiliates Warn Of 'Serious Ramifications'

The wait on the fate of the Lodha Committee recommendations to 'reform' the BCCI seems to have just got longer, with a scheduled hearing in the Supreme Court on Friday being postponed to April 5. A source involved in the case told Outlook that the hearing was postponed due to the "non availability of the bench" on Friday. The bench comprises Chief Justice of India Tirath Singh Thakur and Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla.

After the BCCI — along with a host of its affiliates — objected to several recommendations of the Lodha Committee in an 86-page affidavit, the Supreme Court heard the BCCI's counsel for full two hours on March 3 and then fixed March 18 for the next hearing.

While the bench heard the BCCI counsel on March 3, several administrators from its affiliates heard the arguments with rapt attention. Several BCCI/affiliates officials stood on one leg for the entire hearing, grasping every word being uttered in the court room. Justice Thakur asked some tough and pointed questions, particularly its finances, of the BCCI counsel, who at times turned to the BCCI officials for answers. None of the BCCI affiliates could be heard on March 3 and some of them hoped that their turn would come on March 18. Now, they have to wait a bit longer.

One of the main objections of the BCCI and its affiliates, particularly Maharashtra and Gujarat, is about one state-one vote and the recommended bar on ministers and government servants occupying positions in the Board. Maharashtra and Gujarat are looking more nervous than the other associations because they have multiple associations within their state boundaries, the former having four and the latter three. Lodha Committee wants only one association to have the full status (and the vote) and the others relegated to the associate member status without a vote.

Cricket associations of Mumbai, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Baroda, the Services, Orissa, and Pondicherry, besides former India captains Chandu Borde and Bishan Singh Bedi and ex-cricketers Kirti Azad and Hemant Bhiku Pai Angle of Goa have filed applications for intervention, and are awaiting their turn to be heard.

Some of the objections of the affiliates are amusing, to say the least. Almost all of them, including the N. Srinivasan-led Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) and the Sharad Pawar-headed Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), have pointed out that the Lodha Committee did not give them the opportunity to be heard. When one of the associations briefly raised this point on March 3, it drew the bench's ire, with Justice Thakur annoyingly asking the counsel if he needed an invitation to depose before the Lodha Committee when it was already "international news".

Baroda Cricket Association (BCA), which was founded in 1934 and recognised by the BCCI in 1937, says the Lodha Committee Report "has a direct impact and bearing on the functioning" of the association. "It is extremely pertinent to note that since the State of Gujarat is in a peculiar situation (such as Maharashtra), i.e. having more than one Full Member, it was necessary that all the stakeholders in the administration of cricket in the said States, i.e. the three associations in Gujarat were heard by the Hon'ble Committee before the recommendations were delivered," it said in its application seeking to intervene in the matter.

The BCA says it could "assist" the Supreme Court in furthering "the objective of efficient and transparent administration of cricket". The one-state one-vote policy "will lead to an adverse impact in the development of cricket", and that it would be "leading to inefficiency" in any other association that is in the same situation, points out the BCA.

TNCA concurred with Baroda even as it also said that it, too, was not consulted and that "it is one of the reasons why some factual errors have crept up in the report" vis-à-vis the association. TNCA termed the Lodha Committee recommendations "sweeping in nature" and feared that they "would affect the applicant [TNCA] in several ways".

"Apart from such errors, it is respectfully submitted that the applicant has several objections to these recommendations on sound legal grounds and hence the applicant association ought to be heard in the matter before any orders in the nature of directions are issued by this Hon'ble Court to implement the said recommendations suggested in the report is to bring the state associations to also mirror in their respective constitutions, all of the changes which are made to the BCCI constitution," TNCA secretary KS Vishwanathan in the 147-page application.

TNCA has listed objections/errors in the report under these heads: tickets to Madras Cricket Club by the TNCA for matches; replacing BCCI working committee with an 'Apex Committee'; one-state one-vote; tenure of the Apex Council to be nine years regardless of capacity; no office-bearer can be more than 70 years old; no government servant or minister should hold office; no office-bearer of state associations shall become office-bearers of BCCI; restrict TV advertising to drinks, tea and lunch breaks; and BCCI to start players' association.

"The applicant respectfully submits that the above objections to the recommendations of Justice Lodha Committee are not exhaustive but representative of some the serious issues that are required to be addressed," said the TNCA.

The Lodha Committee has recommended that no official could contest consecutive elections, with a mandatory cooling off period, and that no official could hold more than three terms of three years each. Those who have spent a cumulative period of nine years as BCCI office-bearers would be ineligible for elections, besides those who have attained an age of 70 years.

The 70-year rule would make several BCCI stalwarts like Sharad Pawar (75 years) and N. Srinivasan (71) ineligible.

Baroda says that "such restriction will deprive of the invaluable experience that certain persons might bring to the administration of the BCCI and/or state associations", and suggest that "such issues should be left to be dealt with on a case-to-case basis instead of having a universal bar".
The Lodha Committee recommendations also bar voting by proxy. If the Supreme Court eventually bars proxy voting the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) would be most affected, and also the Goa Cricket Association (GCA). Bishan Singh, Kirti Azad and DDCA member Smaeer Bahadur of Delhi and Hemant Bhiku Pai Angle, a former Goa first-class player and a GCA life member, have supported the recommendations on proxy voting while highlighting the ills in their respective associations.

In its joint application, the Delhi trio says that the DDCA "requires urgent action, as cricketing activities in the NCT of Delhi are suffering". They have been raising issues "about the complete mismanagement in the cricketing and financial affairs of the DDCA, and also the system of proxy voting, which has enabled the administrators of the cricket in Delhi to remain in office".

"The Applicants had also tendered documentary evidence to the Committee in respect of the irregularities and improprieties committed," Bedi, Azad and Bahadur say in their application, with which they have attached the stinging report of DDCA's Internal Fact-Finding Committee that investigated widespread financial irregularities, and other documents.

Angle has also raised similar proxy problem in the GCA.

"It is submitted that the clubs affiliated to the GCA which are the voters for the elections are not represented by the members or the office-bearers of the clubs. But, instead, it is submitted that this phenomenon has over time ensured that certain persons have retained the administrative positions in the GCA for more than two decades. …this has caused the cricket in Goa and the young cricketers to suffer," says Angle, who has deposed before the Lodha Committee.

"Further, it is submitted that there has been large scale misappropriation of the grants given by the BCCI to the GCA, and the Government of Goa instituted an inquiry into the matter. However, the inquiry has not proceeded. It is submitted that there are no persons who have played first-class cricket for Goa in the executive committee of the GCA,”" he says.

Almost all the applications for intervention have virtually warned of "serious ramifications" if all the Lodha Committee recommendations were implemented. TNCA points out that "the issue of implementation of recommendations of the Lodha Committee has serious ramifications on the Applicant Association and hence grave prejudice would be caused to the Applicant if the Applicant is not allowed to intervene in the matter and heard on the issue…"