You can’t trash Lodha panel’s proposals, SC tells Haryana

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 2 

Today was the turn of the Haryana Cricket Association (HCA) to oppose the Justice RM Lodha panel’s recommendations in the Supreme Court; it was also, thus, the turn of HCA to be slammed by the Supreme Court for opposing reform in the administration of cricket in India.

The Supreme Court slammed HCA for seeking to trivialise the Lodha panel’s recommendations. A Bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice FMI Kalifulla told HCA’s senior counsel Puneet Bali that the Indian cricket board (BCCI) and its state units cannot treat the panel’s report and proposals as something that could be “trashed” by them.

The Bench noted that the report contained “recommendations to us,” not for the BCCI and the state units, which should treat them as binding. “We did not set up the panel to allow its recommendations to be rejected. The very composition of the panel shows that we are serious,” it said.

The Bench made the clarification when HCA opposed most of the recommendations, including the one-state, one-vote, restrictions on advertisements during the live telecast of matches, restrictions on the tenure of office-bearers and ban on holding concurrent posts in the state unit and BCCI.

Bali pleaded that the reforms suggested by the panel was not going to put an end to betting and spot-fixing, prompting the Bench to retort: “You mean to say we should remain silent spectators?” The panel had clearly said that the BCCI had made only cosmetic changes in the wake of allegations of betting and spot-fixing in the IPL matches, but fundamental changes were required to restore people’s faith in the game.

Bali said the authorities were interfering in the functioning of the state units and not letting them work independently and complained that the Haryana government had handed over the cricket stadium in Faridabad to a tentwala.

The Bench said that precisely for this reason, the panel had recommended that ministers and government servants should be kept out of the cricket administration. Bali, however, pleaded that the interference was not from the ministers and authorities who were part of the state units.

The Bench, however, said it was open to drop some of the panel’s proposals if the BCCI and its state units were able to convince it that these were not practical and would not be in the interest of the game.