The Board of Control for Cricket in India has registered its new constitution and has formally put the Board on track to implement the Supreme Court order of August 9. The order had given allowances in the tenure and cooling-off clause to cricket administrators but the six northeast states have requested amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium that the original recommendation made by the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee about the cooling-off period be applied for initial few years to the newly recognised full members from the region.
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Speaking to THE WEEK, Nabha Bhattacharya of Meghalaya Cricket Association, who is also the convenor of the informal group of six NE states—Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim—called the North East Cricket Group (NECG), said, “The six new NE states have made a prayer to the amicus curiae on prospective basis to retain original cooling-off clause for them. We have worked very hard to get here by ourselves, without any BCCI support. With full membership and funds coming in, we don't want vested interests to grow. Let new people come in and focus on delivering.”
Assam and Tripura were always full members of the BCCI and they are not part of the NECG.
As per the original recommendation made by the Lodha Committee, each elected office-bearer, whether in state association or the BCCI, had to go into a mandatory cooling-off period of three years after one term of three years. The Supreme Court, however, in its last order, had modified it and made the cooling-off period mandatory after two terms of three years each, in state and the BCCI.
While there's still a long road before a newly elected BCCI is formed, the advent of six more full members from the northeast makes for interesting times ahead in the BCCI elections. According to Bhattacharya, the six NE states will “stick together and vote together”.
“We are grateful to the Supreme Court, CoA, Justice Lodha Committee and the amicus curiae for ensuring our full rights, which wouldn't have happened otherwise. We have worked for cricket with no one to help us,” said Bhattacharya.