In what is perhaps one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), its three office bearers were summoned by the Supreme Court and warned of “serious consequences”, if the new constitution incorporating all but three recommendations of the Justice Lodha Committee is not adopted by the board and its affiliates.
The Apex Court ordered the board and state associations to submit their suggestions to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) within three weeks, after which the CoA would consider these suggestions and submit a final draft to the Supreme Court.
While passing the order, the three judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra stated that BCCI need not call a Special General Body meeting to pass a new constitution, the court would enforce it.
The Court made it clear that the draft constitution, which will be submitted by CoA, would include the suggestions given by Justice Lodha Committee in its “entirety” so that a holistic document comes to this court. The Court specified that the July 18, 2016 order of SC as well as the modified July 24, 2017 order would be the basis for framing the new BCCI constitution.
The three contentious issues related to 'One state One vote', size of the senior selection committee and the reinstating of full voting rights of three government institutions- railways, services and universities as full members will not be included in the final draft, post a debate and an order will be passed on these three issues.
This means that the efforts of the old guard constituting likes of Niranjan Shah, N Srinivasan and T C Mathew, to get the age and tenure cap diluted have finally come to a naught. The 70 year age cap, and the nine year term in state and BCCI respectively, along with a cooling off period of 3 years in between each term would continue.
BCCI acting President C K Khanna, acting Secretary Amitabh Choudhary and Treasurer Anirudh Chawdhry, who were asked to be present in today's hearing by the SC, remained seated in the far corner of visitors' gallery of the Chief Justice's court. When the three judge bench, consisting of Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud along with Misra assembled, Misra angrily summoned them to the front. The trio stood there through the one hour long hearing. Misra's first comment itself was damning as he lambasted the trio saying, “because of their obstinate attitude and unnecessary intervention nothing has progressed, despite an order,” he said. When their lawyer, Puneet Bali tried to get their point of view across, Misra intervened saying, “How can there be a point of view, we'll issue contempt today.” Bali assured “absolute cooperation” with the CoA while drafting the board's and states' recommendations. The Court ordered the three office bearers to be present in person in the next hearing on October 30.
Senior Advocate Parag Tripathi , appearing for the Vinod Rai led CoA told the court that even though CoA had formed a draft constitution, there was hardly any response or suggestion from the BCCI officials or its affiliated units. He termed this silence as “subterfuge maintained to not comply with the Supreme Court Judgement.
Meanwhile there is no secret that all three office bearers are not on same page on various issues. However, two of the three office bearers said after the hearing that they would completely abide by the July 18, 2016 draft of new constitution. One of the main areas, where the office bearers will look to fight hard with the CoA is regaining some of their powers which have been diluted in the draft. The CoA had sought to blunt the “unfettered” powers of elected office bearers by arming the CEO with more functions while divesting the office bearers of many. For instance, there is no clarity in CoA's draft on who convenes the selection committee meetings, BCCI secretary or CEO. In the CoA's draft, the CEO gets far more powers than the elected office bearers.
