Cocking a snook yet again at the Justice Lodha Reforms that were passed as an Order by the Supreme Court Last year, the Board of Control for Cricket in India told the Supreme Court that it has difficulties with major reforms that form the essence of the judgement. In what remains status quo, BCCI listed in its Special General Body Meeting held in New Delhi on Wednesday evening, criterions related to age tenure, cooling off, membership,disqualification, selection committee and apex council size as were found difficult to implement.
Barring these major recommendations, all other reforms were adopted by the BCCI. "The BCCI has adopted Lodha panel reforms except five," said BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary after the meeting.
Five major areas of difficulties were today outlined but as it turned out they clubbed many more points in the garb of these five major points. These are as the issue of membership (one state one vote. It also includes sub points- retaining full membership of all members especially Railways, Services and Universities and others. Another area of difficulty pointed out to the court was in defining the powers, duties and obligations of Office Bearers and appointed Executives like CEO and CFO.
It also listed difficulty in constitution of the Apex Council that will replace the Working Committee. The BCCI hgas requested SC that it finds the position of one Vice president alone represening entire country as limiting and that it should be increased. The SGM also found difficulty with bringing the size of selection committee down to three.
Most importantly it expressed difficulty in implementing the disqualification criteria of office bearers which includes age and tenure cap, cooling off period and barring of Government servants to stand for elections. Their contention being if Railways is a full member it will be represented by an officer or minister and a full member cannot be barred from standing for elections.
There were members who contradicted regarding acceptance of the age cap of 70 years. Some thought it has been passed but others thought differently.
This is being viewed as a victory of the N. Srinivasan- Niranjan Shah group. The old guard senses that the Supreme Court has been feeling inclined towards them in recent hearings. “When court itself gives you permission to come with difficult points, its difficult to convince members to agree on more points. It all goes back to court. The Supreme Court also hasn't shown any anxiety or hurry to implement,” pointed out one BCCI member. hurry too implement
Basically, the report of the special committee formed to bring down areas of difficulty has been binned and deemed redundant after these points were “unanimously agreed upon “ in the SGM.
That committee had agreed to adhere to the 70 year age cap- that decision is rolled back now.
According to a senior member involved in drafting of resolution etc, members argued that why should BCCI itself cut down on difficult areas. Let the SC decide was the refrain,” he said after the meeting.
Earlier, BCCI decided to stick to the July 24 order of the SC in letter and spirit and asked all employees including CEO Rahul Johri to leave the meeting. Johri usually attends as representative of CoA.
The Apex Court in its order on Monday, had barred Srinivasan and Shah from attending the SGM. It had also directed all state associations to be represented only by its office bearers in the meeting.
