Top court today rapped BCCI after Lodha panel report said cricket board was ignoring its recommendations
Highlights
- Top court appointed panel said BCCI was ignoring its recommendations
- Fall in line otherwise we will pass orders: Chief Justice TS Thakur
- BCCI has called for a special meeting on September 30
Chief Justice of India TS Thakur today severely censured India's cricket board BCCI, asking if it "thinks it is a law unto itself," as a panel appointed by the Supreme Court submitted a report saying the board was ignoring its recommendations on reforms.
"Does the BCCI think it can violate our orders and get away with it?" Justice Thakur also asked, saying the top court would hear the Lodha Commission's complaint on October 6.
"When the high-powered committee gives its report, we don't expect this sort of conduct from BCCI. Fall in line otherwise we will pass orders," the Chief Justice said.
The commission, headed by former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha, has recommended that the entire BCCI brass - including board president Anurag Thakur, who is a BJP lawmaker - be sacked for their non-compliance with the recommendations it made earlier this year to make the board's functioning more transparent.
The Lodha panel has recommended that a different set of administrators be appointed to ensure a smooth transition from the old system to the new one it has recommended.
"We have asked the court that current office bearers need to be superseded by a panel of arbitrators. now it's for the court to decide who this panel will be," Justice Lodha told NDTV today, adding, "Our directives have been violated by the BCCI. We have told court that."
Among reforms that the Lodha panel has suggested are bringing the world's richest cricket board under the Right to Information or RTI Act, and that no minister or government servant be appointed as a BCCI office-bearer.
It had asked the BCCI to make changes in its constitution by September 30 and said that by December 15 this year, the board must form a nine-member committee that would replace the board's working committee.
The BCCI said it did not accept many of the recommendations made by the Lodha panel and appointed former Supreme Court judge, Justice Markandey Katju to review them and advise it on whether they should be implemented.
The BCCI has called for a special general meeting on Friday September 30 to discuss the recommendations of Lodha panel. At its annual general meeting last week, it flouted guidelines of the Lodha panel by naming several committees that will be effective for 2016-17.
The Lodha panel was appointed by the Supreme Court after the Indian Premier League or IPL was rocked by a spot-fixing and betting scandal in 2013. It had made its recommendations in January this year.