This is likely to be a blow to the cricket board, which had expressed reservations against some of the panel’s suggestions.
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The Supreme Court has directed the Board of Control for Cricket in India to clean up its house as per the Lodha panel report or have this done under court supervision, delivering the ultimatum on Thursday before permitting the board to come up with its stand on implementing the report.
The apex court has given four weeks time to the BCCI to file its reply.
Telling the court that they could read the writing on the wall, Naphade said sought some time for BCCI to respond.
The Lodha committee, which was appointed by the Apex Court previous year to make recommendations to the BCCI in order to prevent frauds and conflict of interest in cricket administration, has also recommended the setting up of a steering committee headed by former home secretary G.K. Pillai with past cricketers Mohinder Amarnath, Diana Eduljee and Anil Kumble as members. They had done a very extensive job.
“We will find an easy solution”.
When BCCI said it was not adopting an “obstructionist ” attitude but wanted to be heard on several practical problems regarding implementation, CJI Thakur said it proposed to keep alive the Lodha panel and direct it to help the BCCI to implement the recommendations. You have to fall in line with the recommendations.
“BCCI should understand that this is not a second innings…it’s all over”, the Supreme Court judges stated. The CJI offered a way out of this, saying, “We will accept all the recommendations”. The two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice Ibrahim Kalifullah stated that they found no reason to disagree with the recommendations.
Mr. Naphade said the BCCI should not be seen as “obstructionist”.
In an oral submission before the court on January 25, the Cricket Association of Bihar, the original petitioner, wanted the bench to take up the matter for hearing. The bench also agreed with the report that there was no need of representation of vice presidents from all the five zones and there should be one state, one vote, three-year cooling off period after every tenure, restricted tenures for office-bearers, no more proxy voting and pruning of number of vice-presidents from five to one. Naphade said that since the BCCI is a registered society who should implement the recommendations is the question – whether it should be the board or its state members.
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Among other steps, panel said that to ensure transparency in the BCCI’s functioning, it was important to bring the body under the purview of the RTI Act, something that the Board has vehemently opposed in the past citing its autonomy.
