After BCCI vs Supreme Court, it’s back to status quo
After BCCI vs Supreme Court, it’s back to status quo: The BCCI fought in court to weaken the controversial cooling-off period by arguing that it would not disrupt business as usual. It sought to have the constitution, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court, altered to extend the terms of office.
They insisted that they required more time in order to satisfy Indian cricket fans properly. They stated that if a capable administrator wanted to create a state-of-the-art stadium, it would take him several terms in office. To effectively represent India’s interests in international cricket, a BCCI representative must first be accepted as a “regular” by the ICC.
Result
As a result, the ball has been shifted from long-on to deep fine leg by the bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli. The initial 2016 Supreme Court judgment, based on the recommendations of the Justice RM Lodha committee, sought to impose a mandatory sabbatical for officeholders after each three-year term.
They will now be able to serve in both the state organization and the BCCI without taking any time off for a total of 12 years.
With the passage of time, orders do tend to loosen up and the Lordships’ judgement can evolve. Given the general atmosphere of the case up to this point, however, this could be considered a U-turn.
It would be understating things to say that the previous judges who heard this protracted case had a strident tone.
In September of 2016, then-CJI TS Thakur made a severe observation in open court because BCCI was refusing to comply with the SC judgment (at least in writing, if not in spirit).
BCCI
BCCI believes it is above the law. When we give directions, they tend to get carried out. The BCCI is convinced that it is God. Thakur warned the Indian delegate on the board to get in line or face force.
On the day of the verdict, another judicial officer threatened to “shove it down their throats” if the board didn’t comply with the Supreme Court’s decision.
It’s been six years since the original ruling and BCCI’s refusal to comply. By this point, everyone should accept that India is a cricket-crazy country where the Indian cricket board is truly a law unto itself.
The SC appears to have lost its own continuity in granting BCCI’s demand. Since 2016, there have been three Supreme Court orders with various cooling-off periods of three, six, and twelve years, respectively.
After much deliberation, the Lodha committee issued the initial order. They spent days holding hearings in cities including Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and New Delhi.
They spoke to 74 people, including Sachin Tendulkar and other top players, administrators, journalists, editors, fans, romantics, and “strangers who walked up to the members on morning walks and even called at odd hours to put in their two bits on what the future ought to be for Indian cricket,” as stated in the Lodha report.
This was followed by yet another round of exhaustive review, this time by some of the brightest legal minds in the country.
SC
Afternoons would drag on interminably while the judges, with the aid of amicus curiae, listened to the thorny issues that would arise as a result of SC’s proposed new constitution.
This kind of churning can’t be accomplished overnight. Still, suppose it maintains the current status quo. In that case, it’s an enormous waste of judicial resources and a massive injustice to individuals who are waiting for trials or pleading for their cases to be heard.
Even more so, considering that most people waiting in line probably had more pressing concerns than the administration of a sport whose central tenet is a competition in which two teams try to hit a leather ball with a wooden stick.
To prevent monopolies and ensure compliance with antitrust laws, former Chief Justice of India Justice RM Lodha informed this newspaper that the “cooling off time clause” was “the most crucial pillar of our report as far as the governance and structure of BCCI is concerned.”
For this reason, the exercise is pointless if one of the pillars can’t maintain its stability. A panel led by Justice Mukul Mudgal was constituted by the Supreme Court to investigate allegations of spot-fixing by team representatives prior to the Lodha reorganization process.
After Justice Mudgal’s initial report indicated multiple instances of potential sporting fraud, the SC insisted on the participation of police officer B B Misra in the investigation.
Several years later, Misra revealed to The Indian Express that he had nearly solved the case and that there was sufficient proof of misconduct against a winning team member of the 2011 World Cup.
Because his discoveries were unrelated to the specific IPL rigging case, he was not allowed any additional time to nail the player. His report is in court, but no orders have addressed that part of the investigation. As for the judicial system’s “Cleanup Cricket” plan, well, it bombed.
The time of the Committee of Administrators, formed by the Supreme Court, was neither the zenith nor the depths of cricket’s adversity.
Fiefdoms
It was on par with the BCCI era, for better or worse. Ramchandra Guha resigned in anger, while Vikram Limaye left the company quietly, and there was an intense conflict between employees (Vinod Rai vs. Diana Edulji). Teams from India kept winning and losing in cricket, and state agencies were controlled like private fiefdoms.
There were the obligatory coach-vs.-captain spat (this time between Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli) and the occasional careless remark from the leader, as has happened in every age.
Before the 2019 World Cup, Rai, the head of the CoA, attempted to isolate Pakistan on the world stage. He advocated for Pakistan to be dealt with how South Africa was before the 1990s, a term he called cricket “apartheid,” a bad misnomer if ever there was one.
The “new professional BCCI” wasn’t all that different from the “old honorary BCCI,” to put it simply.
The recent judicial interference in which FIFA issued its ultimatum to ban Indian football may prompt the judges to be wary of further intervening in sports.
However, the BCCI’s lengthy interaction with the judicial system has not been without its lessons. It’s not over until the last ball is bowled; cricket games are notoriously tense. There are no “last balls” in court; every final order can be modified.
No matter how justified or triumphant the BCCI may feel, it is aware that it might be taken back to court if it strays too far from the norm. The big lady doesn’t want to bust a move while the Lordships are meeting.