State associations will have to fall in line with Lodha reforms - Supreme Court

India's Supreme Court, on Monday, made it clear that all state cricket associations will have to "fall in line" with the recommendations of Justice RM Lodha led-panel on structural reforms in the BCCI. The court had tasked a three-member committee with recommending changes to the BCCI's constitution and manner of functioning in the wake of match-fixing and spot-fixing scandal that occurred in IPL 2013. The panel presented its report in January this year.

"Once the BCCI is reformed it will go down the line and all cricket associations will have to reform themselves if they want to associate with it. The committee constituted in the wake of match-fixing and spot-fixing allegations was a serious exercise and not a futile exercise," a two-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur, said.

The bench said that recommendations of reforms in the BCCI were made by a committee of experts after extensive deliberations with stakeholders, and the findings could not be defined as "just recommendations". The court's statement was in response to the Haryana Cricket Association's argument that the Lodha panel's findings were only recommendations and a few of them were not feasible for cricket bodies to implement.

"It will no longer remain just recommendations if we say it has to be implemented," the court said. "It was called recommendations as some of the findings of the committee were implemented by the BCCI during the deliberations itself and some were not implemented.

"We are hearing the issue because we are seeing whether the recommendations which have not been implemented can be implemented or not. [The] Justice RM Lodha committee has said that what has been done is just cosmetic and what is required is not cosmetic reforms but more than that."

The apex court also pulled up the Haryana association for objecting to the recommendation of an age cap of 70 years for office bearers, and asked whether "some office bearers in cricket bodies think they are indispensable".

"Do you think that some office bearers in cricket bodies think they are indispensable? Nobody is indispensable, leave alone the cricket administrators," the bench said. "There should be time when you have to say enough is enough, and pave the way for others to take charge."

Responding to objections raised by the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) on the inclusion of a nominee of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the cricket board, the apex court said that the law could be amended to pave the way for reforms.

"[The] Justice RM Lodha committee has said that laws could be amended for inclusion of a nominee from CAG in governing bodies. The law doesn't say that the governing body should only comprise members," the bench said.

Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh, representing the Railways Sports Promotion Board and the Services Sports Control Board, opposed the Lodha panel's recommendation to downgrade the bodies to associate members of the BCCI and take away their voting rights. The bench asked the ASG to give two reasons that justified their claim on voting rights.

"Not allowing us a right to vote is just like ousting us from the decision-making process despite meeting all the required rational parameters which are applied to the states given the right to vote," ASG Singh said. He added that that both Railways and the Services boards had a presence across India.

The court had earlier pulled up the BCCI for "monopolizing" cricket in the country and had said several youngsters wanting to be Dhonis and Kohlis were not given equal opportunity if they were not on the right side of the cricket body.

The court had appointed senior advocate Gopal Subramanium as amicus curiae and sought his assistance to explore how the recommendations of Lodha committee could be implemented. Subramanium will present his views before the court on Tuesday, May 3.