'The Supreme Court has given BCCI a lifeline'

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court was expected to start wrapping up the long-standing hearing related to the BCCI adopting a new constitution as per the Lodha Committee recommendations. Burdened by cases of more national importance, however, the court has failed to dedicate quality time to this issue, frustrating all the stakeholders involved - none more so than RM Lodha, the former Chief Justice of India and architect of the Lodha Committee recommendations.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Justice Lodha remarked that the committee of administrators (CoA), which was appointed by the court on January 30, to supervise the BCCI and make it adopt the new constitution, had failed. "The Committee of Administrators should have straightaway gone to the Registrar of Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, under which the BCCI is registered, to ring in the changes," he said. "After all, CoA had with it the Supreme Court verdict, which said the board needs a complete overhaul. By not doing so, they have given a lifeline to the board officials who aren't willing to leave their posts and (are instead) coming up with bogeys to delay the implementation."

Vinod Rai, the CoA chairman, says he understands Justice Lodha's point in this interview with ESPNcricinfo and tries to clear the air on a few key subjects.

I do understand Justice Lodha's concern. Actually, it is the Supreme Court that has given them a lifeline. On January 2, they removed all the BCCI office bearers. On January 30, the court appointed the CoA. On March 24, the court reappointed the BCCI office bearers. Now, the office bearers are functioning under the supervision of the CoA, but they are functioning fully. In the fourth status report, the CoA pointed out that the office bearers were creating obstacles and had failed to get the BCCI to pass the new draft constitution that mandate the Lodha Committee recommendations.

The court warned the office bearers of contempt, made them appear in the court and then asked them to give their suggestions on making any amendments to the draft constitution. Now, where is the question of the CoA offering a lifeline to the office bearers?

In fact, I have already asked the court to remove the office bearers and impose Article 142 under the Indian Constitution and issue direction to the Registrar of the Tamil Nadu government to register the new BCCI constitution. I had taken a very strong stand. I have submitted five status reports in the court. I have also asked the court to appoint an administrator in charge of all the state associations which have not adopted the Lodha recommendations.

That administrator would oversee and confirm the electoral rolls and then those eligible members from state associations and can cast their vote when fresh BCCI elections take place. Otherwise you will find the same old faces that were removed as administrators by the Lodha recommendations making a comeback in some other form.

We have reworked the BCCI draft constitution. We have made the constitutions of both BCCI and state associations consistent. The Supreme Court told us to point out to them whatever is impractical from the constitution that was submitted by the Lodha Committee. We have incorporated all the suggestions that the office bearers had given including the recommendations that were shortlisted by the BCCI at its special general meeting earlier this year.

Because three months back we have given our suggestions for replacements to the amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium. That was given along with the fourth status report of the CoA. The amicus gave the names in a sealed cover to the court, but the court has not even opened it. Even the BCCI counsel, Kapil Sibal, submitted the names, after the court asked the board to forward its suggestions, in a sealed cover. During one of the last hearings, the court has said that it would open the cover it at the next hearing.

The CoA originally wanted to advertise for the various vacancies. I was told that the senior-level recruitments undertaken by BCCI prior to us coming on board, like the CEO and the chief financial officer, were done through a head-hunting agency. The BCCI does not give advertisements for the higher-level posts. We only followed a precedent set by the BCCI.

We will follow the recommendations to the T once they are accepted. Also, if the CoA was to follow the recommendations all these office bearers would have been out. I have asked them to appoint an ombudsman, to accept the conflict of interest rules. Nothing has been accepted.

Only two of them: GM (cricket operations) and NCA director. Diana [Edulji, CoA member], Rahul Johri (BCCI CEO) and myself are on the interview panel.

As far as the NCA post is concerned, for eight years the land was bought, paid for, but it was languishing. When we studied the issue, we realised an amount of INR 42 lakh was unpaid by the BCCI. We negotiated with the government of Karanataka (NCA is based in the capital in Bengaluru) government and bought an additional land over and above that paid for.

We have got a master plan, vision and concept for the NCA ready. We identified that we needed to find a project manager to realise the vision. The ideal person will not be a cricketer because we felt such a large project needed someone with management experience. Dilip Vengsarkar is already performing the role of a part-time cricket director at NCA in any case. In fact, we have involved and sought inputs from Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rahul Dravid and a broad lot of people to help us plan and raise a concept paper of what the NCA should be. We have asked them to provide us what they need from the NCA based on their needs.

In the short term - first three to five years - the person we are looking for is one who has the experience of having built such similar, big projects. It is a full-time position and he would be in charge of the NCA. But this person will not deal with the cricketing element of the NCA. Suppose we appoint this person as the NCA director or CEO, there will two or three people under him. One of these would be cricket in-charge, another sports medicine head (physiotherapist, strength and conditioning coaches), an administrative/infrastructure head and such.

The Supreme Court replaced the BCCI working committee with the CoA when it appointed us. We have the powers to approve such projects, but I have at every point kept the BCCI office bearers informed. The only difference is they want to be in the driver's seat. The office bearers wanted to lay a foundation stone. I told them I would rather get the NCA inaugurated if the CoA is still there once the plan is finalised.