BCCI files new application against Supreme Court order

The BCCI has filed a fresh application in the Supreme Court pleading for the court's July 18 order to be "suspended" until it hears the board's review and curative petitions against the mandatory implementation of most of the Lodha Committee's recommendations.

The board's affidavit, filed on September 27, is not a response to the status report filed by the Lodha Committee in the court, which recommended that all BCCI office bearers be "superseded" because they were stalling the process of implementation of the reforms. The Supreme Court had given the BCCI a week to respond to the status report.

The BCCI argued in its affidavit that the board had the right to seek more time before following the various timelines set by the Lodha Committee to set in motion the recommendations approved by the court. "The timelines framed by the Hon'ble Committee do not take into account the legal remedies available to the Applicant [BCCI] in the form of review petition and curative petition," the affidavit, signed by Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI general manager, administration and game development, stated.

The BCCI said it "ought to be granted" adequate time to exhaust its legal remedies. "Grave and irreparable loss, harm and prejudice will be caused to the Applicant if the Application is not heard. It is, therefore, respectfully prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to pass an order suspending the implementation of the judgment dated 18.7.2016 till the review petition and curative petition are not heard by this Hon'ble Court."

So far, the BCCI has filed two applications with the Supreme Court against its July 18 court order - a review petition and a curative petition. The review petition singled out TS Thakur, the chief justice of India who was on the two-judge bench that passed the order, and said he had a "prejudiced" approach towards the board and should recuse himself from hearing the matter.

The curative petition was filed in 2015, challenging the appointment of the Lodha Committee by the court. A curative petition is heard by a panel of five justices of the Supreme Court behind closed doors, once the court has turned down the review petition.

On Wednesday, the Lodha Committee submitted to the court a status report listing various "transgressions" of the BCCI. However, the BCCI insisted it had done nothing wrong. The board's affidavit stated it had sought direction from senior lawyers on whether the board could be barred from carrying out its routine functions at the AGM as alerted by the Lodha Committee in an email on August 31.

The board was told that "there was no such direction or mandate in the judgment" which "prohibited" it from carrying on routine functions during the implementation of the recommendations. The affidavit also stated the same was communicated to the Lodha Committee on September 20, when the BCCI explained why the items listed on the AGM agenda had to be carried out. According to the BCCI, the Committee never responded.

The affidavit went on to explain that it is a "statutory necessity" to adopt the annual budget for the next fiscal year (2016-17), appoint auditors for next year and adopt the decisions taken by the working committee at the August 22 meeting. The BCCI said in the affidavit that the appointment of Ajay Shirke as the secretary till 2017 was important because he was the "public face" of the board who performs various duties under the board's rules and regulations.

The Lodha Committee - comprising Lodha and retired Supreme Court judges Ashok Bhan and R Raveendran - was formed in January 2015 to determine appropriate punishments for some of the officials involved in the 2013 IPL corruption scandal, and also to propose changes to streamline the BCCI, reform its functioning, prevent sporting fraud and conflict of interest.