RM Lodha warns Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji against ‘playing with an institution’ like BCCI

In two years, the CoA has failed to get the state associations to implement the Lodha panel’s suggestions and this has disappointed RM Lodha.

The ongoing war of words between the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) members Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji has not missed the eye of the Lodha committee chief Justice (retired) RM Lodha. Formed to implement the suggestions of the Lodha panel recommendations, the CoA has been busy getting into day-to-day activities of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) rather than ensuring the smooth implementation of the new constitution, approved by the SC. In two years, the committee has failed to get the state associations to implement the Lodha panel’s suggestions and this has disappointed Lodha.

File image of CoA members Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji. (PTI)

“They are making a spectacle of themselves. It’s a two-member committee so all the decisions have to be unanimous, no one is superior or inferior, higher or lower. If they aren’t unanimous, status quo should be maintained till they are able to agree on something. This can’t be ‘my way or highway’,” he told the Indian Express.

“If they can’t convince each other and can’t have a unanimous view, how can they ask the BCCI’s state associations to implement the SC order? You can have multiple views but once you sit, you have to find a middle path. There is nothing like a veto power in this committee. This is just a two-member committee, this is not a Parliament where a Speaker is given a casting vote.”

Mails and counter mails have dominated proceedings in the BCCI in recent times and Lodha doesn’t understand the need for such style of functioning as matters can be easily discussed sitting across the table.

“I don’t know why they are exchanging emails and putting things on record. They are members of the committee and should sit together, if required meet every day, and iron out the creases,” he said.

Lodha is of the opinion that if they cannot seem to agree on matters, they should ask the SC to intervene and provide a solution. “If they can’t function together, they should stop functioning and report to the court that this is the problem. They should tell the court that we can’t get along. Can you ride a bicycle that has one truck tyre and other cycle wheel? The SC would have immediately made this a three or five-member committee, which would work on majority decisions,” he said.

Lodha also made it clear that the brief given to the CoA hasn’t been followed by them. “Unfortunately, they have involved themselves in all minor issues and this is the reason things have gone haywire. Their main job was the implementation of the SC order. It has been two years since the order was passed and the old BCCI officials continue to work. We wanted to get transparency in the BCCI, transform the entire management and governance structure, organise a players’ association. Nothing has happened. They keep filing reports, what’s the value of those reports?” he said.

“It’s really sad for me to see all this. You are virtually administering the entire board. If you continue to have divergent expressions on major issues that means the committee is not functioning the way it should. You can’t play with an institution like this. I don’t see light at the end of this tunnel.”