CHENNAI: The BCCI had fallen afoul of the Supreme Court and its current Chief Justice. Friday will be the real day of reckoning when the CJI’s bench may pass orders about in toto implementation of Lodha panel recommended reforms. In disbursing over Rs 400 crore to state associations but averring that it has no control over them, the BCCI incurred the wrath of a court which had laid down the norms by which the board should operate in the future after the adoption of sweeping administrative reforms. The president was so emboldened as to threaten the cancellation of the ongoing New Zealand series if the Lodha panel was going to restrict the flow of funds.
Board insiders admit that the key executive office-bearers could not be seen abandoning their voting association members and would rather force the hand of the top court to act. If the court does ram the reforms down their throats, the administrators could at least plead helplessness. Accepting the inevitable gracefully was an option, but the cash-rich but ethically poor BCCI was not expected to act that way.
The final act of defiance came on Thursday in court when the BCCI refused to give an undertaking that it would implement the directions of the Lodha Committee. “People want money from you and you say they don’t want to reform; stop giving funds to such state bodies,” SC told BCCI. “You must not create a defiant attitude. This is not going to lead you anywhere,” a bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur said.
The bench was pained at BCCI’s stance that the verdicts and directions of the apex court and the Lodha panel were contrary to statutory provisions, saying its reluctance to accept them was part of a “strategy”.
