The elections to the Board of Control for Cricket in India are, technically, due next month. But who runs cricket in India? Is it that half-way house headed by C.K. Khanna and comprising the two Chaudhuris who between them spent ₹3.2 crore on allowances over a two-year period?
Is it the Committee of Administrators, now reduced to two people, which has been focusing on the symptoms rather than the malady itself? In its fifth status report to the Supreme Court which will be taken up today, the CoA has asked that it be handed over the “governance, management and administration” of the BCCI.
Is it the non-elected members, the CEO and managers in charge of the day-to-day running of the organisation?
Or is it the Supreme Court which decides today just how seriously it should take its own CoA and its recommendations which include the sacking of the top office bearers for non-compliance with the Lodha Committee recommendations?
Is it all of the above, or none?
Despite Lodha’s clearly laid out hierarchies and management policies, the board right now is a three-layered structure with the office-bearers at the bottom who defer to the CoA who look up to the Supreme Court. A fourth entity, the Parliament, might come into the picture to pass new laws before the dust kicked up in the spot-fixing case of 2013 finally settles.
Had the BCCI decided to set its own house in order, as the Supreme Court suggested repeatedly in the early months, the matter might have been settled early and without any bloodletting. But thanks to the attitude of two Presidents, N. Srinivasan and Anurag Thakur, who kicked in their heels and defied the Court, it soon went out of the BCCI’s control.
In January this year, both Thakur and Secretary Ajay Shirke were removed by the Supreme Court, but seven months later, their successor Khanna seems to be playing the same dangerous game.
State associations too have been ignoring the Supreme Court’s order with a cavalier disregard for propriety, and have been allowed to get away. I can’t think of a single example from any other field where a Supreme Court’s order has been ignored by so many for so long with so little repercussion. There has been some lip service, the occasional nod to the changes, but overall, emboldened by the kindness of the Supreme Court, the governing body has been happy to pretend to be running when in reality it is merely jumping up and down in the same place.
No one has been arrested for contempt of court, no one feels particularly threatened, no one seems to understand that judgement was pronounced over a year ago and both review and curative petitions have been dismissed. What is the BCCI waiting for?
As the activist lawyer Rahul Mehra pointed out recently, the BCCI’s response calls at least for a “civil contempt”, which, the law says, is “wilful disobedience to any judgement, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court”. The jail term could be six months.
It is easy to get cynical over the whole exercise. The BCCI wants to keep ruling, the CoA wants to try its hand instead, and the Supreme Court is yet to draw the line which may not be crossed. The ambiguity suits those in power who have been trained for decades to turn ambiguities to their advantage.
“We have already put in practice about 90% of the Lodha Committee’s recommendations,” some officials of the BCCI have been saying for a while now. This shows an intriguing ability to pluck impressive numbers out of thin air, but little else.
That the CoA, whose responsibility it is to get into the nuts and bolts of the transition, is aware of the real situation can be seen from their status report: “It is clear that current office-bearers are not in position to make good on their undertakings and ensure that reforms mandated by this Hon’ble Court are implemented.”
In some ways, the success of the national team, now No. 1 in the world, has helped keep the focus away from the court-defying officials. Had Virat Kohli’s men been struggling, the BCCI might have found it difficult to escape the ire of the fans. So long as the national team is doing well, supporters aren’t fussed about the officials.
Perhaps the time has come to run the BCCI like a corporate, with in-built guarantees to cater to the grassroots and ensure the growth and spread of the game. Pay the office-bearers so they cannot hide behind the “honorary” excuse. That is a quicker, sharper way to bring in accountability and transparency. Advisory Committees will have a role, but elections — the bane of the system — will be done away with.
It is a thought, as the Supreme Court prepares to draw that uncrossable line.