Lodha Committee secretary warns BCCI and states against violation

Entrusted with overseeing the transition at the BCCI, the Lodha Committee aims to ensure that all the recommendations approved by the Supreme Court are carried out by both the board and the state associations concurrently.

In the following six months, both the BCCI and the state associations will need to clean up their house and refurbish it based on the various recommendations. Secretary of the Lodha Committee, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, warned that if the BCCI or the states were to violate any of the rules laid out in the Lodha report, they would be guilty of contempt of court.

"If either the BCCI or the state associations choose to take steps now which are inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the committee's bylaws which have been approved by the court, then they will be guilty of contempt of court," Sankaranarayanan told ESPNcricinfo.

"The duty cast upon the Lodha Committee, the BCCI as well as all the state associations has commenced yesterday with the judgement."

In a historical verdict on Monday morning, the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and Justice Ibrahim Kallifullah, accepted most of the recommendations made by the Lodha Committee. The court said the recommendations were binding not just on the BCCI, but also on the state associations, and both had up to six months to implement the recommendations.

This, it could be interpreted, will render possible forthcoming state association elections in contempt and should they be held at all, their results null and void.

Office bearers and officials at both the BCCI and the states have been slow to react, stating they would study the order before deciding the next step. That next step, it is understood, might not be theirs anymore - the Lodha Committee is likely to go into the minutiae of every state association in order to ensure that every recommendation will be adhered to and due administrative changes are put in place by the time the six-month deadline is completed.

The committee would not want to be seen as being slow by merely observing what the BCCI and the states are doing in the next six months. The resulting message that could go out to the states is that the only way they could remain Full Members is by adhering to the new rules laid out in the Lodha report and carrying out the constitutional amendments ordered by the court. So if Delhi and District Cricket Association wants to continue to be a Full Member, it will need to get rid of proxy voting, the biggest malaise affecting one of the oldest cricket associations in the country.

Similarly, if any state association is holding elections before the court deadline expires, the Lodha Committee has the powers to dictate to the state whether it can actually go to polls, or if the results can be frozen, if the candidate(s) qualify to stand for elections or not.

There have been questions on whether the BCCI and the states might need to rewrite their respective constitutions and bylaws. However, it is understood the Supreme Court has already approved both the memorandum of rules as well as the bylaws that were written and submitted to it by the Lodha Committee, which appears to indicate that the BCCI will, as party to the judgement already made, accept a new constitution.