When the Supreme Court first took on the task of reforming the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), hopes were high that India’s richest sports body would finally be held accountable to its principal stakeholder: spectators.
Without India’s humongous television audience, the BCCI would not control 70 per cent of worldwide cricket revenue. That quasi-monopoly has made the BCCI wealthier but not more transparent. The Supreme Court was supposed to reform an organisation that for decades has defied authority, resisted coming under the RTI Act and refused to shed the cloak of opacity.
Following the Justice Mukul Mudgal report on match-fixing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2013, the Supreme Court appointed former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha to recommend a comprehensive reform plan for the BCCI. A Committee of Administrators (CoA) was established to ensure the Lodha Committee’s recommendations were implemented. More than two years later, the issue remains unresolved. Headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai, the CoA has been diligent but ineffective in imposing the Lodha Committee’s recommendations.
As expected, the battle-hardened BCCI has proved to be a tough nut to crack. It has used every artifice to stonewall reforms. The CoA has not been blameless either. Its four-member committee has been reduced by two with no effort made to replace Ramachandra Guha (who resigned on 1 June 2017) and Vikram Limaye (who left shortly thereafter).
The result: the BCCI’s acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary has engaged the CoA in a battle of attrition. Instead of holding the BCCI’s former administrators in contempt for not implementing the Lodha reforms, the Supreme Court is planning to dilute two of the committee’s key recommendations at its next hearing. These two reforms strike at the heart of the BCCI’s opaque structure and the grip powerful politicians have over its finances.
The first is the “cooling-off” clause that was integral to the Lodha reforms. At its hearing on July 6, a Supreme Court Bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud observed that it “would consider” waiving the cooling-off period. The cooling-off clause prohibits a BCCI office bearer from holding a position in the body for three years between consecutive terms with a maximum overall tenure of nine years and an age cap of 70 years.
This would limit the near-lifelong, lucrative sinecures the BCCI offers politicians and their acolytes. Politicians like Rajeev Shukla and Sharad Pawar would, for example, be affected by this reform. Astonishingly, the Supreme Court seemed to lean towards just the fudge the BCCI seeks: waiving the three-year cooling-off period if the office bearer contests for a different post. Thus a secretary after completing his tenure could continue holding office in the BCCI as a treasurer.
The second reform in danger of being diluted is the one-state, one-vote recommendation. Due to legacy issues, certain regions have more than one vote (for example, Maharashtra and Mumbai). The Lodha Committee’s recommendations seek to end this anomaly and democratise the voting process across India. The BCCI, hostage to regional interests, has fought relentlessly against this reform. The Supreme Court, after two years of denying the BCCI any latitude on this clause, has done an abrupt about-turn. It observed at its last hearing: “No state should be deprived of their voting rights but there are age-old associations which have contributed to the growth of cricket in the country and they should also not be deprived.”
This plays right into the hands of regional politicians who have for decades enjoyed multiple voting rights. With the cooling-off reform also likely to be axed, the politicians who have made the BCCI a haven of cronyism will have the Supreme Court’s sanction to overturn the Lodha Committee’s key reforms. The reformed constitution of the BCCI now awaits the Supreme Court’s final order. The Lodha Committee had recommended that politicians and bureaucrats should be barred from holding posts in the BCCI. The idea was to professionalise the body, as cricket boards in Australia, New Zealand and England have done, by loosening the grip of vested political interests.
At its hearing almost exactly two years ago, the apex court ordered a complete overhaul of the BCCI on the basis of the Lodha Committee’s recommendations. The unconscionable delay of two years in deciding the case has allowed vested interests acting on behalf of both the BJP and Opposition to make a mockery of the Lodha reforms. The country’s Assistant Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had the gumption to argue in favour of allowing politicians and bureaucrats holding office in the BCCI at the July 6 hearing in the apex court. Appearing for the Maharashtra and Gujarat state cricket associations, the ASG pleaded: “The court would do a serious injustice to people if they are not allowed to use their expertise and experience in cricket administration just because they are holding public office.”
If the apex court allows the key Lodha reforms to be diluted, the BCCI will revert to being the unaccountable, opaque body it has been since it was registered as a ‘society’ in Tamil Nadu in 1928. Sullied by allegations of match-fixing, dope testing violations and financial irregularities, it will soon be business as usual for the BCCI.
The Lodha reforms were the last opportunity to cleanse the BCCI. We will know shortly if the Supreme Court has imposed its will—and the will of the public—on the BCCI. Failure to do so will be a disservice to the public.
Minhaz Merchant
The author is an editor and publisher
Tweets @MinhazMerchant