BCCI Reforms committee rescheduled by a day; SGM to be held two days before SC hearing

The seven-member committee constituted by the BCCI to look into the implementation of the Justice RM Lodha committee recommendations will now meet on 8 July. The unavailability of one of the committee members, Jay Shah, resulted in the postponing the meeting originally scheduled for 7 July. A Times of India report suggests that the committee is very intent on respecting the Supreme Court’s orders. In 2015, the Supreme Court of India had to intervene in the functioning of the Board of Control for Cricket in India after there was widespread criticism over its transparency and created a committee headed by former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha. After much research and deliberation, the committee came up with a list of recommendations. On 18 July, 2016, the Supreme Court passed the judgement asking the BCCI to implement the Lodha committee recommendations. With BCCI failing to implement the Supreme Court judgement, on 30 January, the Supreme Court appointed a four-member committee of administrators (CoA) to administer the day-to-day affairs of BCCI till the Lodha committee recommendations were implemented. [caption id=“attachment_3203172” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Justice Lodha. PTI[/caption] Till date, there has been no consensus in the implementation by the world’s richest cricketing association. In the BCCI’s recent Special General Meeting (SGM) on 26 June, the state associations failed to adopt the Lodha Committee recommendations despite it being on top of their agenda. It is reported that the CoA believes that the only way these recommendations would be accepted is to ask the Supreme Court to enforce these reforms directly. With the next Supreme Court hearing scheduled for 14 July, BCCI put together a seven-member committee during its SGM to analyse the few contentious Lodha panel reforms which were being opposed by the state units. The seven-member committee consisting of names like IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla, former captain Sourav Ganguly were supposed to meet on 7 July to “identify the few critical points in respect of the said judgment for the General Body of the BCCI to consider before its submission to the Honourable Supreme Court”. The four contentious Lodha panel recommendations that is delaying the implementation process are one-state one-vote, age cap of 70 for office-bearers, cooling-off period for office-bearers and size of the national selection panel. The  Times of India report says that all reforms except the cooling-off period for office bearers and one-state one-vote may be accepted. However, a CoA member has flatly refused to budge on the cooling-off tenure recommendation. With the next SGM being scheduled for 12 July, just two days before the next Supreme Court hearing, time is a major constraint for the BCCI which has been skirting around the rules and time limits for quite some time now. However, the man behind the recommendations, Justice RM Lodha told reporters , “All these things have been argued before the Supreme Court multiple times. They have been rejected. Supreme Court has put seal of approval. There can’t be more superior forum than SC. All these points had been rejected before the SC when they had argued. What is the point of saying all this now?”