Katju slams Lodha report, asks BCCI to file review plea

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket board made it clear on Sunday that it is not willing to implement the sweeping administrative reforms recommended by the Supreme Court-appointed

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket board made it clear on Sunday that it is not willing to implement the sweeping administrative reforms recommended by the Supreme Court-appointed Justice RM Lodha committee.

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The BCCI has tasked former SC judge, Markantey Katju, to advise how to counter the Lodha panel. He told a media conference on Sunday that he has advised the board to file a review petition in the Apex court and asked president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke to ignore the Lodha panel’s summons for a meeting on Tuesday.

Justice Katju lampooned his own former colleagues by slamming the judgement of Chief Justice, TS Thakur and Ibrahim Khalifulla, who had on July 18 directed the BCCI to implement the Lodha panel recommendations in six months.

He was also dismissive of Justice Lodha, former Chief Justice of India, when asked about the panel’s stand that Katju cannot accompany Thakur and Shirke to the meeting.

Releasing a 43-page ‘first report’ with annexures citing various cases to argue that the Supreme Court had ignored past judgements, Katju said the court’s domain was to interpret law but the ruling amounted to usurping the legislature’s domain of making law. “What the Supreme Court has done is unconstitutional and totally illegal. One organ of the state can’t take over the working of another,” he said. “The judiciary cannot legislate.”

“I can understand the concern of the Supreme Court for cleaning up the world of cricket. But there are many allegations against the judiciary also, so who will do the cleaning up?”

The court could have forwarded the report to parliament, he said.

The BCCI and its state units have met twice in the last week. They are concerned over the panel restricting the age of office-bearers to 70, barring anyone from holding more than one post, within BCCI or simultaneously in other federations. Office-bearers can’t continue for more than a cumulative period of nine years, and also need to ‘cool off’ for a year after each term.

Justice Thakur, in a recent petition against the football federation (AIFF), observed that the body could get the ‘BCCI treatment’. Katju said: “Is this the language of the Chief Justice?”

He said the BCCI was a registered society governed by statutory enactments. However, the Apex court had dismissed the contention while ruling that it was a ‘public body’.

The BCCI has 30 days from the date of judgement (July 18) to file the review petition.