The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s plea for urgent listing of its application for approval of its amended constitution which would enable the board’s president and secretary to have six-year terms before entering the cooling-off period as against the overall six-year term, including the stint at the state associations, prescribed by the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee.
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly is presently the BCCI president while Jay Shah, the son of Union home minister Amit Shah, is the secretary. If the new constitution is approved, it would enable the duo to continue in their posts for at least another three years. “We will see if we can take it up next week,” the bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice Krishna Murari told senior advocate and former additional solicitor-general P.S. Patwalia, who sought urgent listing of the application originally filed by the Board on April 21, 2020.
Appearing for the BCCI, Patwalia told the court that the amendments, which require the approval of the apex court, have been in the pipeline and could not come up for hearing because of the intervening Covid situation. “Lordship may list my application for urgent hearing. The application was filed two years ago in April 2020. There were directions for listing it after two weeks, but then Covid came and the matter could not be listed. The amendments are in pipeline for two years. Kindly list the matter,” Patwalia pleaded, to which the bench agreed to consider the plea for listing next week, but did not given any specific date.
According to the amended rules, “A President or Secretary who has served in such position for two consecutive terms in the BCCI shall not be eligible to contest any further election without completing a cooling off period of three years. During the cooling off period, such Office bearer shall not be a member of the Governing Council or of any committee whatsoever of the BCCI. The expression ‘President’ or ‘Secretary should not be permitted to be circumvented by being a member of any other committee or of the Governing Council in BCCI as the case may be.”
As per the original recommendations of the Lodha panel, an office-bearer who has held any post for two consecutive terms either in a state association or in the BCCI (or a combination of both) shall not be eligible to contest any further election without completing a cooling-off period of three years. During the cooling-off period, such an office-bearer shall not be a member of the Governing Council or of any committee whatsoever of the BCCI or of a state association.
