Lodha Panel Alleges BCCI Transferred Rs 500 Cr To Affiliates Defying Order

The Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee has charged the BCCI with transferring over Rs 500 crore by defying its instructions, and asked the beneficiary associations to not use the funds.

The Committee, in an email to the BCCI state associations, said the amount was “hurriedly” transferred between September 29 and October 1. The committee had stopped the BCCI from distributing funds to its affiliates in the absence of a disbursement policy.

While delivering the judgement in the 2013 IPL betting-fixing case on July 18, the Supreme Court had given wide-ranging powers to the committee to implement the recommendations the three-member panel had given. Then, the committee gave the BCCI a set of timelines and instructed it that could not take any decision pertaining to the future unless it adopted all the recommendations.

After having “learnt” of the amount transferred from the banks, the committee on Tuesday evening ordered the board to furnish minutes of the adjourned special general body meeting on September 30 and the actual meeting on October 1 as well as those of the ‘special’ working committee meeting held on September 30.

“It has come to the notice of this committee that despite the express directions of the Committee and the Timelines framed by it, the BCCI (of which your association is a member) has taken decisions at the AGM of 21.9.2016 and the ‘Emergent’ Working Committee of 30.9.2016 to disburse large funds to each Association, without framing the Disbursement Policy which was mandatory,” Lodha Committee secretary Gopal Sankaranarayanan said in an email to the BCCI and was also put up on the committee’s website.

“It is further learnt that amounts between Rs 10 crore and Rs 20 crore were disbursed to each association as infrastructure subsidy and Rs 28 crore as compensation shares from the Champions League T-20 cancellation. The banks confirm that most of these transactions were hurriedly carried out between 29th September and 1st October,” said the mail.

The Lodha Committee pointed out to the BCCI that it was aware that the panel had filed a status report before the Supreme Court for certain directions on October 6, when it hears the Board’s reply.

“In this light of events as the actions of the BCCI to transfer these funds is contrary to this Committee’s directions and subjudice you are hereby directed not to in any way transfer or disturb those funds that have been transferred as above to your association. If anything is done contrary to this express direction, it will be brought to the knowledge of the Hon’ble Supreme Court for appropriate orders on contempt,” says the email.

“It is gathered that Rs 560 crore may have been transferred within 48 hours by the BCCI to its state associations,” a source told Outlook.

The committee further asked the BCCI to furnish the minutes of the three recent meetings by Wednesday morning (October 5) .

Interestingly, no money was transferred to Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) and Tripura Cricket Association (TCA), which have agreed to abide by the Lodha Committee recommendations and change their constitutions to comply with its orders.

But lately the BCCI has taken a few decisions much against the instructions of the Lodha Committee.

On Tuesday, the panel also clarified that neither has the Supreme Court Committee frozen the bank accounts of BCCI nor has it objected to the banking operations/payments relating to routine administration and conduct of cricket matches/tournaments/activities. “This has been clarified in express terms to the banks concerned, so that cricket and the public are not made to pay for the actions of the BCCI governors,” said the committee email.

“What was objected to was the decisions said to have been taken at the Emergent Working Committee meeting of BCCI on 30.9.2016, to disburse large funds to the various member associations under the guise of increasing the annual infrastructure subsidy and to divide the proceeds of the Champions League compensation. We understand that these may run into figures of more than Rs 500 crore. Such decisions were neither routine nor emergent,” read the email.

The committee expressed surprise at a press statement by BCCI president Anurag Thakur, who said that if the committee’s recommendations were implemented, BCCI would have to either abandon the plans to host the 10th edition of the IPL or pull the Indian Team out of the Champions Trophy to be held in England in June 2017.

“The out-of-context statement by the president is misleading. While dealing with IPL, the report had merely suggested that while drawing up the cricket calendar for a year, a gap of 15 days may be provided after a strenuous IPL season before the commencement of events in the national [cricket] calendar, to ensure that a cramped cricketing year does not take a toll on the cricketers’ body and longevity of their career,” explained the committee.

“This does not in any way prevent some flexibility where the calendar has already been declared for 2017 when the Champions Trophy has already been scheduled.”