The Justice Lodha Committee’s recommendation to supersede the cricket board’s office-bearers is the most serious one yet from the former judge. If the Supreme Court accepts this, with a retired bureaucrat taking over as observer, it would be the biggest blow to the game’s administration, that used to pride itself as one of India’s better-run sports federations. The BCCI has, of course, invited all this on itself by continuously ignoring the Supreme Court’s directives and often flagrantly violating orders. Far from trying to resolve contentious issues with the panel, the BCCI’s top brass followed their own agenda, using emotional blackmail as in threats to hold up Test series and not paying allowances to the members of the visiting England team.
The BCCI was given sufficient time to signal that it would carry out reforms, but in the months since the July order mandating the Lodha report, only four of 27 associations agreed to comply with the changes, under which old office-bearers must take a compulsory break and those above 70 shed their posts. All through the three-year tussle with the court on various cricketing matters, specially on the cash-rich IPL tarnished by betting and match-fixing scandals, featuring players and team owners and several breaches of the principle of conflict of interest, the board only displayed its financial muscle by hiring expensive lawyers. Its dilatory tactics put it on a confrontation course with a bench headed by the Chief Justice. There were enough indications that board officials thought they were beyond judicial scrutiny. For transparency to prevail, the price must be paid now.
