Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
BCCI vs Supreme Court: Key players in the ongoing tussle
The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear the BCCI’s response to the Lodha Committee’s report that sought the ouster of the board’s top brass
The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear the BCCI’s response to the Lodha Committee’s report that sought the ouster of the board’s top brass, including president Anurag Thakur, for non-compliance of its recommendations.
Here’s a look at the key players in the ongoing tussle between the board and the Supreme Court:
Justice RM Lodha
If cricket’s landscape is changed in the next few years, it will be due to this man. The three man committee also comprised retired Supreme Court judges Ashok Bhan and R Raveendran but Justice Lodha was the smiling face that read out the death warrant to the BCCI on January 4 earlier this year. The panel was formed in January 2015, in the wake of the Justice Mudgal Committee report that called for reforms within the BCCI after the IPL corruption case.
The Lodha committee started out by sending an 82-point questionnaire to the BCCI to understand how the body functions. Key recommendations were one-state-one-vote policy, legalising of betting, banning of advertisements in between overs during cricket telecast, age-limit for BCCI office-bearers, players’ association, bringing BCCI under RTI and ban of politicians and bureaucrats. There was an attempt to show the committee in poor light by alleging that it had frozen BCCI accounts and hence the series against New Zealand couldn’t go on but Lodha clarified that he had given no such instruction to the banks.
Shashank Manohar
Being a top lawyer himself, Manohar was expected to lead the BCCI in this time of crisis. But just when the crisis was getting more complicated, Manohar resigned in the leadup to the ICC elections. The ICC had announced in February that the new chairman had to be independent and won’t be able to hold a position with their home board, like Manohar and his predecessor N Srinivasan had done. Many BCCI insiders saw this as an act of desertion when the BCCI needed its leader most. Manohar didn’t wait for people to judge him.
Justice TS Thakur
A two-judge Supreme Court bench comprising TS Thakur, the Chief Justice of India, and Justice Ibrahim Kalifulla, were the implementers of the Lodha Committee proposals. With the BCCI dragging its feet on most issues, the bench didn’t hesitate from hitting out. “If you have any difficulty in implementing it (the reforms) we will have the Lodha Committee implement it for you,” Justice Thakur had said when the Court set March 3 as the deadline for the BCCI to make its stance clear.
When Anurag Thakur said he was not consulted before the recommendations were finalised, the bench asked: “It was international news that we had formed the Justice Lodha committee to suggest reforms in cricket. The whole world knew it. Now you come to us and say the recommendations were a bolt from the blue for you and you were not consulted... What were you doing? Waiting at the fence for a written invitation?” Last month when the BCCI was delaying the implementations, Juctice Thakur again hit out. “You (BCCI) are behaving like lords. You better fall in line or we will make you fall in line.”
Anurag Thakur
An ambitious young leader with a political pedigree, Anurag Thakur was all set to take over the reins of the BCCI when he was appointed the secretary under Shashank Manohar. But things were fast-tracked when Manohar resigned from his position, leaving Thakur to step up and save the ship. His initial public image was that of someone who was trying to hear out both the Supreme Court as well as his members. But with time, Thakur started opposing some of the recommendations, often questioning them in public.
Like the one on fixed tenures and cooling off periods. “Should the Parliament have had such a rule, how would I, as a young MP, have heard and learnt from senior leaders like Pranab ji (President Pranab Mukherjee) and (LK) Advani ji? Would Dalmiya ji have achieved such a standing in world cricket had he been given limited time frame as administrator who are anyway elected? It would seriously affect continuity in your work is what the BCCI members felt,” said Thakur.
Justice Markandey Katju
Justice Katju, who has been appointed by the BCCI to advice on SC verdict on implementation of Justice Lodha committee recommendations, advised the Board to file a review petition before a larger bench of the apex court and not to meet the Committee as scheduled on August 9 terming the panel as “null and void”. “What the Supreme Court has done is unconstitutional and illegal. There has been violation of principles of the Constitution. Under our Constitution, we have legislature, executive and judiciary.
There is broad separation of functions. It’s the legislature’s prerogative to make laws. If judiciary starts making laws, one is setting a dangerous precedent,” Katju said at a media conference. Justice Katju said that since the BCCI’s constitution had been prepared as per the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, both the Supreme Court and and Lodha Committee can’t forcibly change the BCCI by-laws. The argument however didn’t stop the Supreme Court from going ahead and place further deadlines on the BCCI.
