Supreme Court heard proceedings in the BCCI-Lodha reforms logjam. (File Photo)
Supreme Court has barred N Srinivasan, Niranjan Shah from attending the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) Special General Meeting scheduled for July 26. The court further clarified that only the office bearers of the state associations can attend the meeting. However, the issue was kept open to debate. The next hearing will take place on August 18.
Meanwhile BCCI through its secretary appearing in the matter of implementation of Justice Lodha reforms, or lack thereof, differed on viewpoints and progress from Committee of Administrators (CoA) appointed by the court on many counts. The two legal counsels of the CoA and BCCI were locked at loggerheads in court on the implementation of the Lodha reforms which are yet to be carried out – more than a year since the officials inside the cricket board were removed for not carrying out the reforms.
The court, meanwhile, threw a googly on the case and the views of Justice Lodha that it once endorsed. The court expressed willingness to modify Lodha panel recommendations like One State One Vote, membership patterns, and increasing the number of selectors (from the recommended three). It further added that the ‘One State One Vote’ policy is not favourable to India which is in sharp contrast to what Justice Lodha reforms had proposed while expressing intent to re-open issue.
“All concerned (BCCI and state associations) shall implement the recommendations of the Justice Lodha Committee Report as far as practicable, barring the issues which have been raised pertaining to membership, number of members of the selection committee, concept of associate membership, etc,” the court said in its order on Monday.
“The purpose is to implement the report as far as practicable and, thereafter, it shall be debated as to how the scheme of things can be considered so that the cricket, the ‘gentleman’s game’, remains nearly perfect.”
