Supreme Court gives BCCI six months to implement Lodha recommendations
The cricket board said it respects the top court's decision and will look towards implementing the panel's recommendations.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Board of Control for Cricket in India to implement the recommendations of the Justice Lodha panel and gave them six months to do it. The court also declared that no ministers or serving bureaucrats could serve on the cricket board. The panel was constituted in January 2015 to clean up Indian cricket.
The court accepted all of the panel's recommendations except for one on the broadcasting of cricket matches, which it left for the BCCI to decide. Other key recommendations that were upheld included the one state-one vote directive, capping the age of office-bearers at 70 years, and inducting an official from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India into the BCCI. It also ruled that Parliament would have to decide on whether the cricket board came under the aegis of the Right to Information Act and whether betting should be legalised.
Senior BCCI member and MP Rajiv Shukla said that the board respects the Supreme Court's decision and will work towards implementing the Lodha panel's recommendations. The BCCI had filed a counter-affidavit with the top court in March, arguing that the committee's suggestions were impractical. The panel had submitted its second set of recommendations, which involved sweeping changes in the structure of Indian cricket, in January this year.
The Justice Lodha Panel was formed by the apex court in January 2015 to look into the affairs of the BCCI, in the aftermath of the spot-fixing scandal in the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League. Comprising former chief justice RM Lodha and retired Supreme Court judges Ashok Bhan and R Raveendran, the committee had announced its first verdict in July that year, recommending the suspension of two IPL franchises – Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royal – for two years. It had also called for a ban on the two principal owners of these teams – Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra.