Breaking: BCCI Review Petition Against Lodha Reforms Not Dismissed :Defers Hearing For Two Weeks [Read Order]

After a brief in-chamber hearing, a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur today deferred by two weeks the hearing on the review plea filed by the BCCI against its July 18 judgment directing the board to implement the Lodha Committee report which has recommended sweeping reforms in the structure, functioning and membership to the cricketing body.

The key issues over which the Lodha committee and the BCCI are at loggerheads are one vote per state, one person-one post, age cap for office-bearers, and the cooling-off period for them before re-appointment to any key post

Significantly the review petition was filed following a legal advice from ex-Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju whom it had appointed as an adviser on August two

BCCI had wanted a five-judge Constitution Bench to hear the plea.

BCCI had said the SC verdict “smacked of judicial overreach” and was thus “unconstitutional”.

Holding that the SC judgment amounted to “judicial legislation” and violated the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act and the Indian Constitution, Justice Katju had said: “the supreme court was only entitled to receive the report of the Lodha Committee and pass it on to Parliament for law-making.”

The review petition echoed Katju’s view that the Supreme Court ignored the law that any change in the rules of the BCCI should have been made through a special resolution initiated under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act. “Complaints against the BCCI should have been filed before the Registrar of Societies, who is the competent authority under the Act”, it said.

SEPARATE CASE

The review petition had nothing to do with the case reserved for verdict by the bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur yesterday.

In that case, Lodha panel had moved the apex court seeking action against BCCI, including ouster of its top brass and replacing them with an administrator for continued non-compliance of its orders to implement the Lodha panel recommendations

The bench hinted it might not immediately oust entire top brass of the Board and appoint an administrator for continued defiance of Lodha reforms but impose certain conditions which will severely impinge its financial autonomy. The court had on October 7 cracked the whip on the cash-rich BCCI, and restrained it from disbursing extra funds to 25 State associations till they accepted the Justice Lodha Committee reforms in “letter and spirit” and informed the same to the panel and to apex court bench hearing the matter.

TD: Earlier it was reported that the BCCI review Petition has been Dismissed

Read the order here.