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Ugra: Attorney general’s intervention a sign of government backing BCCI
The attorney general of India, Mukul Rohatgi, has asked the Supreme Court to revoke its order that required the BCCI to implement a two specific recommendations of the Lodha Committee.
Rohatgi was representing three government-run organisations – Railways, Services and the All India Universities – whose full member status in the BCCI was to be downgraded to associate level according to the Lodha Committee recommendations. The most significant consequence of the recommendation was that all three members would lose voting rights at BCCI elections.
The attorney general confirmed this was the first time the Indian government was intervening in the 2013 IPL corruption case, which began in August 2013. Rohatgi also said he had met former BCCI president Anurag Thakur, who had been removed from office by a Supreme Court order on January 2, earlier this week but said they were meeting as friends and did not discuss the BCCI-Lodha case.
“They were full members with voting rights. That status has been downgraded to associate members without voting rights,” Rohatgi told ESPNcricinfo. “How could the Supreme Court downgrade our full membership in BCCI without issuing notice to us first.”
Rohatgi told the court the three organisations had been big contributors to Indian cricket, employing many players and so the court should reconsider its decision. “What right does the apex court have to downgrade them as BCCI (full) members,” he told the three-judge bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud.
Rohatgi also challenged the Lodha Committee recommendation that said no serving minister or civil servant could be an office bearer of the BCCI or state association. “”Why can’t the Railway minister not become an office-bearer?” Rohatgi asked.
“I am asking for a recall of your orders. Lodha Committee was appointed by this court to punish those found guilty in the IPL match-fixing,” Rohatgi said according to the Hindu. “Then you told them to reform cricket … when has the court become a reformist body?”
Justice Misra, while acknowledging Rohatgi’s concerns, said the court would consider the attorney general’s requests. “We are not shying away from the legal issues. They are interesting,” Justice Misra said. “We will have a debate.”
The intervention of the attorney general took place at a time when the bench of judges hearing the case has changed in composition and is vastly different from the bench that had heard the case for over a year. The previous bench, led by the former Chief Justice of India TS Thakur had ordered the formation of the Lodha committee to recommend reforms within the BCCI and then ordered the implementation of the reforms. The current bench is made up of Justice Dipak Mishra, who is in line to become the next Chief Justice of India at the end of August, DY Chandrachud and AM Khanwilkar, who began hearing the case from October 2016.
The Lodha Committee was formed in January 2015 to determine appropriate punishments for some of the officials involved in the 2013 IPL corruption scandal, and also to propose changes to streamline the BCCI, reform its functioning, prevent sporting fraud and conflict of interest.
In January 2016, the committee released its report, which recommended an exhaustive overhaul of the BCCI’s governance and administrative structures. On July 18, the Supreme Court of India approved the majority of the recommendations and directed the Lodha Committee to supervise the BCCI’s implementations of the same. However, despite the Lodha Committee laying out timelines and other directives, the board did not cooperate because it said that its state associations objected to the recommendations. This impasse eventually led to the Supreme Court removing Thakur and Shirke from office on January 2, 2017.
Nagraj Gollapudi is a senior assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo