Cricketers, nay all sportspersons and lovers of sports, heaved a sigh of relief at the pathbreaking judgment of the Hon Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice Kalifulla. In the landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has accepted a major chunk of the recommendations made by the Justice Lodha panel. All that the BCCI had opposed has come unstuck, in one stroke of the pen. The judgment’s philosophy has been very simple — “move on and make BCCI more transparent and accountable”.
What does the judgment hold for BCCI?
There will be no ministers and the age cap of 70 and one-state-one-vote policy will shake up the roots of the century-old BCCI. The age cap for officials will hurt several senior Board officials many of whom have not known any life beyond BCCI and State associations. BCCI was always on the back-foot and when the Bench started asking probing questions, all that it and its propped up State units could do was only mumble inanities in challenging the Hon Court’s jurisdiction to question the functioning of the BCCI since it was an association registered under Article 19 of the Constitution. What it failed to answer with conviction was discharging of its stated functions of selecting the State and Indian teams.
When the Justice Lodha Committee was constituted, we could sense that finally the highest court had realised that water had begun to flow above the head, what with a spate of complaints regarding lack of transparency and accountability in BCCI and its affiliates. Who should be its members, who should have the vote, who should play cricket in India, how money and power/positions are to be shared, et al — everything was an in-house affair. Elections at all levels were a farce. Loopholes in the legal system were abused with the help of lawyer-politicians who even thought of a great trick — hire a private ex-judges’ panel and get a favourable report in respect of a franchisee whose owner was caught cheating. Hundreds of crores were paid to lawyers to keep detractors at bay. Lawyers and their progeny milked BCCI. No ministers, age cap of 70 and one-state-one-vote policy will certainly deal a telling blow and will shake up the BCCI. Several top BCCI officials, who also lead their respective State associations, are all aged over 70. The Supreme Court has clearly laid out that the Justice Lodha panel recommendations will have to be implemented in the next six months. Retired Justice Lodha and his panel will oversee the transition.
The Chief Justice’s soothing words that they hoped this verdict would bring in some reforms and BCCI must accept change must have come as a jolt for Board bigwigs who never imagined that a day would come when their carefully crafted empire would be shaken up at the roots.
The BCCI’s Annual General Meeting is scheduled in September and it remains to be seen how the one-state-one-vote policy is implemented. States like Maharashtra and Gujarat have multiple units with voting rights. The court has ordered “rotational” voting and it will be one of the biggest problems. A few sops and positions coupled with four state and three government votes practically deciding who would win the elections were a mere formality. Politicians strutted around as bridegrooms and were running the show.
DDCA is where our fight began. All kinds of third rate freeloaders have got into the associations. By bringing in a rootless politician who had no interest of cricket or cricketers at heart, DDCA literally went down the drain. Hundreds of missives, letters and meetings were ignored. Money was looted with impunity and talented youngsters were denied their due because boys with influence and money could play, barring a few exceptional talents. Age fudging was common and the office bearers were neck deep in corrupt activities which were supported by the top man. And, when the man was asked to be accountable he simply ran away and has ever since been making statements that he was only a non-executive president and had no role in the administration.
We cricketers had been fighting these very ills for a long time. Our requests to BCCI and DDCA was met with utter contempt. Neither the BCCI nor the local cricket body, DDCA, was prepared to even sit down and talk to us. With a politician at the helm, they thought that they would tire out any detractors. Money was there to be looted and the process of law could be abused, what with a battery of lawyers to file cases in various courts against stakeholders. Friendly litigation and stays which were not challenged could enable the delay in AGMs and elections. Balance sheets would not be filed for years — in short, it was sheer brazenness.
All these non-executive office bearers, who have been filing declarations in ROC that they had nothing to do with the administration, will have to answer for all they did, and did not do in the last 15 years. The clock has turned a full circle. We are indebted to CJI Thakur and Justice Kalifulla. The judiciary has done what the Executive and Legislature did not do all these years.
Kirti Azad is a former cricketer-turned-politician