BCCI panel moots 12-year tenure

With the Supreme Court hearing on Lodha panel reforms looming, the seven-member BCCI special committee decided to highlight some contentious points which it believed would be difficult to implement.

The BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary, after the meeting here on Saturday, said they have unanimously identified 5-6 points which they would like to bring to the notice of Committee of Administrators and the Supreme Court.

It is understood the Board has reservations on four points in the Lodha reforms and would be informing the Supreme Court of the difficulties in adopting them. The four points are one-state one-vote, composition of the selection committee (they want the number to be increased from 3 to 5), the cooling off period (a break after every three years), and age cap of 70 years to hold an office.

On the issue of three-year ‘cooling off’ period, the panel mooted a couple of alternative suggestions, including a 12 -year tenure for office bearers as per the National Sports Code.

The Lodha Panel reforms state that a cumulative period of nine years for any BCCI office-bearers (separate 9 years for state units) with three-year ‘cooling off’ between every term.

The other proposal was to have a straight nine-year term without any ‘cooling off’.

It is believed that 73-year-old Niranjan Shah, a former Board secretary, who was part of the meeting as a “special invitee”, opposed the issue of age cap.

Choudhary said they would be having the second and final meeting on July 7 in Mumbai.

“The deliberations were very good and fruitful and there was an amazing amount of unanimity amongst all members, including Sourav Ganguly who participated through Skype. The job profile of the committee is to identify the difficulties which we would like to submit before the honourable Supreme Court of India,” he told reporters.

“We are determined to translate the order we have of the highest court of the land. We have a few difficulties which we will bring even before the CoA. We have travelled almost the complete distance today. There is, however, some distance left which we will travel on July 7, which is just six days from now. The final die will be cast on 7th.”

The Supreme Court hearing, about the implementation of Lodha panel reforms after the status reports filed by the Committee of Administrators, is scheduled on July 14.