Kolkata: The BCCI- appointed seven member committee on Saturday decided to accept the recommendations of the Lodha Committee but they would still seek the help of the apex court for some, ‘finer adjustments’ to the same.
Their meeting was held in Delhi and the seven member committee which consists of Rajeev Shukla (chairman), TC Mathew, Naba Bhattacharjee, Jay Shah, Anirudh Chaudhry, Sourav Ganguly, and Amitabh Chaudhary. Ganguly though wasn’t present in person but attended the same from London via video conference.
The BCCI according to sources is likely to file an affidavit before July 14, which is the date for the next Supreme Court hearing. The affidavit would reveal that, “all SC recommendations are hearby acceptable to us, but please give us a passionate hearing on few of our genuine concerns.”
Well to begin with, the first concern out of all the recommendations was with the 70-year age clause in which Niranjan Shah’s comments and opinions were ignored. Niranjan Shah was the special invitee to this meeting.
A BCCI official said, “He (Shah) was only inducted after pressure from a certain camp (read Srinivasan). His views or his presence had no meaning for the others.”
The second area of discussion was the one of the, ‘cooling off period between two three-year terms.’
After the discussion, it was decided that they would move to the apex court to request it ‘to make it a straight nine’, which implies that a request would be made for allowing three straight terms in both the BCCI and state cricket associations.
The panel arrived at a decision that, “There can’t be an effective administration by any individual or a group in a limited time span of three years. Therefore, we are going to request the Hon’ble court to make it straight three terms like any other democratic election.”
If the, ‘cooling off period’ recommendation is what with which the Supreme Court sticks to at the end, then Sourav Ganguly, a member of the seven member committee might as well have to step down from his post of the CAB president.
Despite discussions, keeping in mind the, ‘tone of SC orders’ talks of a 12-year tenure on the footsteps of National Sports Code was dismissed.
The all-important issue of the ‘one-state-one-vote’ policy was agreed upon but not without it’s ‘adjustment’ for the sake of carrying on the legacy of cricket. The members in the meeting decided that they would request the Supreme Court to not get rid of the multiple voting system of some states as well as organisations.
This means that they would demand the apex court to allow Maharashtra and Gujarat to have three votes each and also let Railways and Services carry on using their voting rights as they have been a part of the Ranji Trophy for a long time.
A senior official of the board was quoted as saying by dna, “Those who have been representing Ranji teams and have contributed immensely in the progress of cricket in India should be allowed to have a say in the BCCI affairs and thus should be allotted a vote like it has always been the case.”
The issue of the All-India Universities can be left to the court to decide whereas the Indian board feels that discussions regarding the Cricket Club of India (CCI) and National Sports Club (NSC) in the court would be nothing but a waste of time.
A further plea that is going to be made to the Supreme Court by the BCCI is with allowing the new Ranji Trophy teams (from Northeast of Bihar or Uttarakhand) which according to them should be left to the discretion of the BCCI’s expert committee for ensuring a minimum level of proficiency and capability.
“The process has to be followed before induction of any new team. We all agree to have teams from all states, but then the level of competence has to be judged and brought up to a certain level. For example, a particular state may take a year to reach that level while the other may need three years to do so,” the official further added.
No official minutes were recorded in Saturday’s meeting and a second and final meeting of the committee would be held on the 7th of June as decided by the acting secretary of the BCCI Amitabh Chaudhary. The BCCI also is most likely to come up with a final draft to be submitted to the court as an affidavit before the 14th of July if things work according to plan.