The Indian cricket board was staring down the barrel of a gun the moment they started defying the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee’s key recommendations to reform the functioning of the board. The board, Lodha panel and SC have been locked in such a fractious battle that they threaten the very tenet the game represents — gentlemanliness.
The latest suggestion, to the SC, to appoint a former bureaucrat to oversee the transition after removing all BCCI senior offi cials who do not conform to the panel’s stringent rules, is seen as an ‘extreme step’ (the SC had said this when the panel recommended this in the hearing). However, it was not unexpected. The only question is whether the Lodha panel has overstepped their boundaries. Going by the string of events that led to this move, the panel couldn’t afford to tolerate the board’s insolence anymore.
Also, Chief Justice of India T S Thakur is due to retire in January next year and the panel would like to end the case by then. Though the next hearing is on December 5, it is most likely the new set of recommendations will be accepted. The SC has already given the BCCI a long rope and time to voluntarily change its constitution and implement the panel’s recommendations.
However, the suggestion of retired bureaucrat GK Pillai’s name has not gone down well with some. They argue that if a bureaucrat is not eligible to be an offi cebearer in the BCCI and its associates, then how can a retired bureaucrat be appointed an observer to oversee the transition? Perhaps, it’s an argument with some merit.
Except for a few, the BCCI did not accept key recommendations, especially the ones that would jeopardise BCCI president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke’s existence alongside some top officials. It remains to be seen what the BCCI does next. It won’t leave the stage without a fi ght.