The Supreme Court today asked the Board of Cricket Control in India not to disburse any money to state associations and directed state associations not to utilize any funds obtained from BCCI after its last order.
If any of the state units utilize the recently disbursed funds, they will also face action, the court warned.
In an interim order, the court asked the BCCI to submit an affidavit accepting the Lodha Committee’s recommendations on reforming the cricket club.
Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) secretary Aditya Verma said today’s order was a restatement of the position that nobody and no organization was above the laws of the country.
The case will now be heard on the 17th of this month.
The interim order comes after the apex court had yesterday given a one day’s time for India’s cricket body to enforce the reforms recommended by the Lodha panel.
Some of the key Lodha committee recommendations were one state one vote, age limit of 70 years for administrators, nine-member apex council instead of working committee, nine-year tenure for administrators with cooling period after every three-year term and three-member selection committee to pick the Indian team.
The Supreme court had ordered the implementation of the Lodha committee orders on July 18 and reviewed its implementations by September 28.
According to Amicus Curaie Gopal Subramaniam, not only did BCCI defy the Lodha recommendations, the board went on conduct their board meet on September 30 to announce the new five-member selection panel and transfered money to state associations despite not forming a disbursement policy.
At the hearing held yesterday, the apex court had given a day’s extension to the BCCI to enforce the reforms put forward by the Lodha panel.
Justice Thakur led panel hit out at the BCCI “for wasting the court’s time” and not undertaking the reforms and warned that if the measures were not implemented, orders will be passed today.
The court also noted the absence of former cricket players and people with cricketing experience among the board members.
The BCCI was supposed to adopt the new draft memorandum by September 30 as proposed by the Lodha Committee.
Implementations of these reforms would lead to the removal of the the BCCI’s top officials.
Some of the recommendations like the one state one vote policy was also objected by former cricketing greats Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar.
This recommendation will allow every state cricket team to participate in the Ranji trophy, which meant that Maharashtra cannot have two teams Mumbai and Maharashtra.
Mumbai has a bigger talent pool and can contribute more than one team to the Ranji. This may lead to a large group of prospective talented players not getting opportunity to prove themselves or to showcase their talent, some have said.
After a spot-fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League during the 2013 season the, SC ordered a panel under former CJI RM Lodha to clean up the BCCI body and suggest changes.
