The BCCI has called for a Special General Meeting later this month to prepare a response to the recommendations made by the Lodha Committee. While BCCI president Shashank Manohar refused to comment following a meeting of the legal committee in Mumbai, it is understood that the SGM is likely to be convened on February 19. The state associations will soon be sent out a notice in this regard.
Despite the BCCI’s rules stipulating a 21-day notice period for calling an SGM, the board might not wait that long to huddle into a meeting. “It is an extraordinary situation, a crisis situation. So, if all the members unanimously ask for it to be convened in less time, it can be convened,” a source privy to the discussion at the legal committee meeting.
Another source said that the legal committee was of the view that the Lodha report was a “good one but it had a lot of practical difficulties in its implementation.”
“We haven’t decided anything today. There is no point of doing that without taking the state associations on board,” the source said. “That’s the purposes of the SGM: to listen to their suggestions and grievances. Hopefully, we can find a solution by the end of it.”
The Supreme Court had given the BCCI a March 3 deadline to inform if it could implement the recommendations made by the Lodha Committee comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice Ibrahim Kalifullah. “If you have any difficulty in implementing it we will have the Lodha Committee implement it for you,” Justice Thakur had told the BCCI counsel on February 4.
In an oral submission before the court on January 25, the Cricket Association of Bihar, the original petitioner, sought a full implementation of the Lodha report.
The BCCI’s legal counsel said the board found certain anomalies in the report and needed more time to further review the recommendations. Justice Thakur dismissed the request for any extension, and said the court was going to accept the Lodha report completely and implement it.
The Lodha committee, appointed by the Supreme Court in January 2015, recommended a complete overhaul of Indian cricket, from the very top down to the grassroots level. Its report covered every aspect of the game with special focus on the BCCI’s administrative and governance structures and the issue of transparency.