One of the most astonishing developments of the last month has been the reassertion of authority by those board members who we thought had been consigned to the dustbin of history. After the Supreme Court’s three-member bench, headed by then Chief Justice of India, TS Thakur, had struck the hammer and pronounced its verdict of accepting the Lodha panel recommendations in toto, it appeared certain that the old order in the BCCI was on its way out.
The most telling blow to the board’s audacious defiance of the court’s soft approach in forcing the implementation of its order, came when its president and secretary were barred from intervening in its functioning. The young turk, Anurag Thakur, whose vaulting ambition had taken him right to the top of the BCCI hierarchy, was in one stroke reduced to pleading for pardon in court. Ajay Shirke, the wily official from Maharashtra, the man soaked in the internecine intrigues of his organisation, met the same fate. The tremors of this action could be felt far and wide among the veterans of the BCCI, who had forfeited their right to any office in a set-up they had ruled for more years than they could remember.
With the court appointing a four-member committee to administer the board and the mandate to get the Lodha recommendations implemented within a given time frame, the end game was now a fait accompli. When the highest court of the land passes a verdict and ensures a mechanism for its orders to be followed, one expects even a murmur of protest from the condemned to get muffled.
Surprisingly, that is not how events have unfolded subsequently. For reasons not known, the entrenched interests in the board, represented through officials who seemed on their way out, are once again calling the shots. N Srinivasan, barred from attending board meetings, disqualified according to the new norms, is now openly calling the shots. He is attending official BCCI meetings, guiding the “rebels” and setting an agenda of defiance that is once again clamouring for toning down a few key reforms. Another powerful voice that had got muted, Niranjan Shah, the strongman from Saurashtra, too is back, as part of the committee that is taking a fresh look at the Lodha recommendations.
It matters little to them that their objections were already rejected by the court. They are back to those very basics which were debated threadbare in court by lawyers of both sides and finally rejected by the judges. Even the administrators appointed by the court are either helpless to do anything or are themselves not sure of their own authority.
It is astounding that a court order, passed almost a year ago, is being played around with such impunity. This defies logic. Is there some devious game afoot, something which one is not aware of? Sports Minister Vijay Goel, in an interaction with scribes in Delhi last week, was posed a question on whether a sports bill will supersede the Lodha recommendations and force all sports federations including the BCCI to come under its ambit. Goel was forthright in saying let the courts handle BCCI as they are a law unto themselves, making it very clear that he favours what the judiciary is doing.
That brings one back to the question, what has happened so suddenly to make the board so emboldened as to not care about the court order? The answer will, probably, become clear on July 14 when a three-member bench, headed by Justice Deepak Mishra, resumes its hearing. The court, as Justice RM Lodha told this paper, will take an 'appropriate’ decision. What that decision will be holds the key to the future of the much needed, inordinately delayed, administrative reforms in Indian cricket.