Supreme Court to BCCI: Implement Lodha recommendations

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.

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. You have to fall in line with the recommendations. We will hear BCCI only if there is some inherent anomaly in report.”

The CJI pointed out that the recommendations deserved respect. “They have come from the most illuminated and respected members of the legal community. They have done extensive deliberations with all stakeholders. Fall in line and save the trouble.”

Counsel said the recommendations had to be extensively deliberated with 30-odd members and implementation in full would give rise to “all sorts of legal and technical complications”, including the losing of BCCI’s registration under the Tamil Nadu Registration Act.

Naphade said the Justice Lodha report had been distributed among members and a meeting of its legal committee has been fixed for February 7, 2016. Refusing to see reason in counsel’s submissions, the CJI said, “It is a viable and rationale report. We will have an easy way out. We will ask the very same committee to implement it . Whether to get it registered. We will tell them the BCCI has some problems so please help them in implementing it.

“We have seen the report. When all the members have been consulted, their views have been taken, what is the problem . They (members) have all been heard. We can’t start the fresh process of debate. There cannot be a second innings. You take a realistic view of the matter and do according to the recommendations.”

Justice Thakur want on to say, “It may not be in the interest of some people who are holding power. Any transition has to have its problems.” Naphade said, “It involves sweeping changes. We are not taking a obstructionist view and even if you want to accept 100 per cent of the report it may require time.”

However, the CJI said, “We will accept all the recommendations. We will ask the committee to continue. If you have any difficulty we will ask the committee to steer the BCCI to clear your problems and to implement the recommendations.”

The bench was taken through the report by senior advocate Indu Malhotra, appearing for the Cricket Association of Bihar, which had filed this application for an early hearing on the Justice Lodha report released on January 4, 2016.

She gave the bench an overview of the report, including structural, electoral and legal changes recommended by the Supreme Court-appointed panel.

The bench gave the BCCI time till March 3, the next date of hearing, to respond to the Lodha report. It however, accepted the report insofar as exoneration of former IPL COO Sundar Raman in the IPL betting controversy.

The Lodha panel among other things had suggested that the law be suitable amended to make match fixing/spot-fixing a criminal offence to ensure the purity of the game and to legalise betting.