BCCI is refusing to be reformed: Supreme Court

The apex court is hearing on the implementation of the Lodha panel recommendations.

New Delhi: The hearing related to the implementation of the Lodha panel recommendations continued on Thursday with the Supreme Court observing that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is refusing to be reformed.

"No control over people, or whom you allocate money. BCCI is refusing to be reformed, while discharging a public function," a two-judge bench of the court comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice Ibrahim Kalifulla had observed.

SC observes: No control over people, or whom you allocate money. BCCI is refusing to be reformed, while discharging a public function.

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Dismissing BCCI's claim that appointment of government officer is tentamount to violating ICC provisioned guidelines, the court questioned the board, by asking " Is BCCI arguing that we might collect crores... but we can't be questioned as to how we spend it?"

During the hearing, the two-member panel also remarked that "BCCI does not ensure that the money they allocate is well spent."

In the previous hearing on Tuesday, the apex court had put the blame for poor state of cricket in the country squarely to the BCCI. It had questioned BCCI’s allocation of funds to the states and said that the funds were distributed like a ‘mutually beneficial society’ without any rationale.

During Tuesday's brief hearing which lasted less than 90 minutes, the court also turned down the BCCI's request to review the 'one state one vote' recommendation made by the Lodha panel in January this year.

Lauding the work done by Justice R M Lodha-led committee for bringing out massive structural change in functioning of BCCI, the bench said that “this is not an ordinary panel. It is a committee on which we have complete faith. It is committee of judges and its findings have to be relied upon. We cannot say that the findings are perverse.”

"They have come after consultations with the experts and a wide spectrum of people and the recomendations have been given by a former CJI who have experience and they have arrived at some conclusions,” the bench had said.

It's also pertinent to mention once again that, the court wanted to know whether any cases of misappropriation and FIR has been lodged by the BCCI.

Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the BCCI, said an FIR was filed pertaining to the funds allocation to Jammu and Kashmir cricket board and that Assam has not filed the statement of account.

In that the bench observed, that “Rs 570 crores is distributed every year and next time it will be Rs 1000 crores. There must be a system to check embezzlement, siphoning. You cannot allow the siphoning and misappropriation of funds.”

The BCCI had presented a report in the SC on its plans to implement the recommendations made by the panel headed by retired chief justice RM Lodha in order to prevent sporting frauds and conflict of interests.

Ever since Lodha panel submitted its report to the SC, voices from all corners have raised serious concerns over its recommendations.

The Lodha Panel was set up in January 2015 by the apex court to determine appropriate punishments against those who were accused in the IPL betting and spot-fixing scandal.

The three-member committee, comprises of Lodha and retired Supreme Court judges Ashok Bhan and R Raveendran.