No option but to fall in line, SC tells BCCI

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, September 28

The Supreme Court today firmly told the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) that it had no option but to implement Justice RM Lodha panel’s proposals for administrative reforms to ensure the sport was promoted and played in a fair and transparent way.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur told BCCI’s senior counsel Arvind Datar that the court would make the BCCI fall in line if the Board did not do so on its own. The Board could not be law unto itself, bringing disrepute to the entire system.

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The Bench made the remark when Datar informed the court that the Board had filed a petition seeking a review of the July 18 apex court judgment, stipulating the reforms the BCCI had to undertake as recommended by the Justice Lodha committee.

The observation of the Bench was also prompted by the submissions of advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan on the panel’s status report on compliance of the reform process by BCCI.

He said the Board had gone ahead with electing the office-bearers and choosing the new five-member panel of selectors under the old system, ignoring the panel’s suggestions approved by the apex court. The panel wanted a three-member selection committee comprising top cricketers, but the Board has gone for a committee of five who had very little experience of playing Test cricket.

As the Bench wanted to know if the review petition had been numbered by the court’s registry, Datar said the registrar had pointed out certain defects which the Board was in the process of removing. The Bench, which included Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, said the Board had perhaps deliberately filed the petition with defects to delay the hearing and avoid the reforms.

Datar, however, pleaded that the Board had complied with most of the recommendations and was seeking a review only in respect of some of the proposals.

Expressing its displeasure, the Bench said it would hear the matter on October 6.