Lodha panel confirms nine-year cap for state office bearers

The Lodha Committee has made it clear that office bearers, across the BCCI and state associations, who have completed nine years in the job cumulatively stand disqualified and cannot contest for another term. The committee was responding to queries from various state associations asking how it determined if an officer bearer was not eligible - that is, if the nine-year cap only took effect going forward, or if it would take into account years already in office at the time of the Supreme Court's order.

In its attempt to clear the doubts, the committee sent an email to the BCCI, asking it to relay the clarification to the state associations. The committee said that some of the state associations, which are scheduled to hold their elections in the near future, had raised a "point of confusion" with regards to the maximum period prescribed in the Lodha report. The report, which was signed off on by the Supreme Court on July 18, said office bearers can hold office for a maximum of nine years - three three-year terms, with cooling off periods in between.

The committee summed up the queries as: "1. Are individuals who have cumulatively completed nine years as office bearers of a state association disqualified from again becoming office bearers? 2. Is the nine-year disqualification period to be reckoned only commencing from the date of the judgment (18.07.2016) or does it include tenures as office bearers prior to that date?"

Having deliberated on the matter, the three-man committee headed by RM Lodha, the former chief justice of India, decided that any office bearer who has cumulatively completed a period of nine years in a state association stands disqualified from contesting further elections or keeping the post.

"So that there is no doubt, if any individual has completed nine years as an office bearer (whether through consecutive or separate terms; whether in one post or another) of the state association by or before 18.07.2016, that individual stands disqualified," the committee said.

While delivering its landmark judgement that made it mandatory for the BCCI to implement most of the recommendations of the Lodha Committee, the Supreme Court appointed the same panel to oversee the implementation of the recommendations within the specified six months. On July 20 the committee declared that the elections of all states associations that have been conducted since the order (Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association) or are scheduled to be conducted in the near future (Cricket Association of Bengal, July 31, and Karnataka State Cricket Association, August 7) will be declared null and void.

In today's email to the BCCI, the committee said that it had started drawing up a roadmap with timelines to help the board swiftly put the reforms in place.