Tamil Nadu, Karnataka And Several States Lead Bid To Overturn Indian Cricket Reforms

Cricket associations of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Saurashtra are leading the way in an effort to have the cricket reforms orders of the Supreme Court recalled, and have filed a spate of applications over the last couple of years with that aim. But most of these applications have become either infructuous or mediated successfully by amicus curiae.

On Wednesday, after the Supreme Court settled a "substantial" number of interlocutory applications (IAs) by giving these the liberty to avail remedies, if they hadn't become infructuous or mediated successfully by amicus curiae and senior advocate P.S. Narasimha, only 14 applications, including that of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), remain to be dealt with.

These 14 are "seeking recall of various directions of the Supreme Court and of Justice Lodha Committee recommendations", on which the new BCCI constitution is based and which has been approved by the Supreme Court.

The others whose prayers are the same as that of the BCCI's -- recall of various directions etc for implementation of reforms -- are the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), the Haryana Cricket Association, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association, the Railway Sports Promotion Board, the Services Sports Control Board, the Association of Indian Universities, the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association, and the Kolkata-based National Cricket Club.

The court has fixed the next hearing on January 20, after its winter vacation.

The BCCI has sought amendments to six points in all, with the most important being Rule 45, which is the lifeblood of the new constitution.

At its 88th AGM on December 1 last year, the BCCI general body agreed to six amendments and the top of those was the Rule 45: "These Rules and Regulations of the BCCI shall not be repealed, added to, amended or altered except when passed and adopted by a 3/4th majority of the members present and entitled to vote at a Special General Meeting of the General Body convened for the purpose or at the Annual General Meeting. Any such amendment will not be given effect to without the leave of the Hon'ble Supreme Court."

According to the AGM minutes, the house resolved to have Rule 45 be replaced with this: "These Rules and Regulations of the BCCI shall not be repealed, added to, amended or altered except when passed and adopted by a 3/4th majority of the members present and entitled to vote at a Special General Meeting of the General Body convened for the purpose or at the Annual General Meeting."

The AGM minutes said: "The final constitution of BCCI contains a requirement that any amendments to the Constitution have to be approved by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. By this provision the members autonomy and right to seek legitimate changes is restricted. Moreover, approval of such changes every time by the Hon'ble Supreme Court is not practical. Hence the following amendment of Rule 45 is placed before the Board and the following Resolution was passed unanimously:

"Resolved That subject to approval with or without modifications of Hon'ble Supreme Court the following Rule 45 of BCCI Constitution."

On the other hand, TNCA has sought recall of judgment and order dated July 18, 2016; October 7, 2016; October 20, 2016; January 2, 2017; and January 3, 2017.

Former BCCI president Sharad Pawar also wanted to intervene, but his application became infructuous "as the final order has already been passed".

Also, an application of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association, "challenging the order of the BCCI election officer N. Gopalaswami holding its nominee (Rajeev Shukla) as ineligible for being included in the final electoral roll of the BCCI elections to be held on October 23, 2019", has also become infructuous "since elections have been conducted".

Gopalaswami, a former Chief Election Commissioner of India, disqualified eight associations before the BCCI general body meeting at which elections were held.