Moment of reckoning for BCCI after Supreme Court diktat

After being pulled up by the Supreme Court on Wednesday for non-compliance with its directives aimed at reforms in the cricket governing body, the BCCI will again huddle here at a special general meeting on Friday.

The conference was convened after the September 21 annual general body meeting to consider amendments to the rules and regulations of the Board, as recommended by the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee.

The meeting becomes significant, as the apex court has set a deadline of October 6 for the BCCI to furnish explanations for their non-compliance of the SC-validated recommendations of the Lodha committee report.

Justice R.M. Lodha on Wednesday submitted a status report to the special bench that had appointed the committee, outlining the BCCI’s indifference to both ‘falling in line’ with and even responding to communication from the panel.

Following the report filed by the Lodha panel, the special bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur passed stringent remarks on Wednesday against the Board “to fall in line” and implement the Lodha panel reforms as per its earlier judgement.

In the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s ire, there seems to be no escape route left for the BCCI bigwigs headed by president Anurag Thakur except to drop its defiance.

The Lodha panel had recommended a set of sweeping reforms in BCCI, including restricting the tenure of office bearers, introducing a cooling-off period for administrators, cutting down the present five-member selection panel to three and employing the one state one vote policy, among others.

The BCCI has remained defiant so far and had filed a review petition and curative petition to even question the Lodha Committee members and their suggested reforms but nothing has helped so far.

The board led by president Anurag Thakur elected Ajay Shirke as secretary in the AGM on September 21 despite the Lodha panel’s reservations. They also appointed five-member selection panel and will now have to prune it to three to respect the Supreme Court directive.

Jatin Panranjpe and Gagan Khoda are likely to miss out as they haven’t played any Test and may be given the role of talent scouts.

“One can question any thing but the BCCI has to function on a day to basis, The secretary is the empowered person carrying out day-to-day affairs subject to the orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

All our decisions are subject to court orders,” Shirke had said after the AGM.

“That (SGM) is part of the performance, I mean of our compliance report so we are sticking to that,” he had added.