BCCI’s bonus to Team India for No. 1 ranking also needs Lodha nod: Thakur
Thakur added that the members have accepted all recommendations barring a few and that the Board would try to explain before the court on Monday the practical difficulties the state associations are facing.
Push has come to shove and Monday could well be the D-Day for the Indian cricket board in its ongoing tussle over its opposition to implementing the Justice RM Lodha committee report in full.
The BCCI counsel will provide the sports body’s arguments before the Supreme Court, but it remains to be seen how the court sees Saturday’s special meeting of the board’s full members where the decision was to let the case first reach its logical conclusion. The court, in its October 7 hearing, had asked the state units to file affidavits that they would follow the Lodha report to receive funds from the BCCI.
BCCI president Anurag Thakur is the man in the spotlight. Added to it, he is also supposed to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court explaining his interaction with his predecessor in the Indian board and current ICC chairman, Shashank Manohar.
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Government interference
The court directive came in the wake of reports that a letter was sought from the global body to the effect that inclusion of a Comptroller and Auditor General’s office member in the Apex council as required by the Lodha report would amount to government interference.
Thakur said the members have accepted all recommendations barring a few and that the Board would try to explain before the court on Monday the practical difficulties the state associations are facing. He said Saturday’s meeting in Delhi was more of a feedback exercise. “Our reservations to few of the issues still stand,” Thakur said.
He was non-committal on whether the Board and its members are ready to submit affidavits in the court to unconditionally accept the Lodha recommendations, the deadline for which is Monday.
“We will be meeting our lawyers tomorrow morning. Anyway, the SC has to see the problem the state associations are facing. Many of them have thousands of members and they have to talk to everyone to reach a consensus. It will take time and can’t be done arbitrarily with the state association presidents taking the decision,” he said in an informal media interaction.
The BCCI has already opened a front against the Lodha committee members and Thakur listed another problem.
“We have decided to give the Test Team Rs 1 crore cash prize for becoming the No. 1 team in the world but again for this to happen, we will have to go back to the Lodha committee for approval.”