Cricket associations across the country cannot get funds or utilise funds received from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) unless they endorse the justice lodha panel recommendations as per the Supreme Court order of July 18. The SC on Friday passed this interim order after the BCCI said it cannot implement the lodha panel reforms since majority of the member states opposed it in a meeting on October 2.
A Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur, Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud issued this interim direction even as it kept in abeyance the other demands made by the lodha panel, including supersession of the present office bearers of BCCI with a panel of administrators.
As per the order, the Bench restrained the BCCI from supplying funds to any of its associate and full-time members unless they pass a resolution adopting the directions given by the Court, ordering structural and administrative reforms in the functioning of the BCCI. According to the Board, ahead of its September 30 meeting, it disbursed a sum of Rs16.73 crore to 13 cricket associations.
Twelve others states are yet to get their share from the BCCI.
As regards the 13 associations that have already lifted the funds received from BCCI, the bench said they cannot spent or utilise the amount until they adopts the reforms and submits a copy of the said resolution with the lodha Committee. In addition, the beneficiary association, which has received funds or is yet to receive funds, must give an undertaking of its president to unequivocally abide by all directions of lodha Committee.
The BCCI counsel, following the order, told the Bench that there are certain legal and technical issues which the Board seeks to address by October 17, the next date of hearing. The Bench told the BCCI counsel Radha Rangaswamy, “File an affidavit of compliance instead of precipitating things further.”
While the order was on expected lines, the Bench sprang a surprise by demanding a personal affidavit from the BCCI president Anurag Thakur on whether he had written to the International Cricket Council to state that the appointment of Justice lodha Committee amounted to Government interference in the working of the BCCI. As per the ICC provision, any such Government interference can lead to the BCCI disqualification from the international cricket body.
Thakur will have to be careful in what he states as the Bench took a prima facie view that “the BCCI, far from lending its fullest cooperation to the lodha Committee, has adopted an obstructionist, and at times a defiant attitude which the Committee has described as an impediment undermining not only the Committee but even the dignity of this Court with several statements and actions which according to the Committee are grossly out of order and may even constitute contempt.”
In addition, the court even demanded the BCCI’s General Manager Ratnakar Shetty to supply on the next date all resolutions adopted by the BCCI authorising disbursal of funds and all original records used by the BCCI to defend itself against the lodha Committee’s stinging report pointing to their defiance.