o The Supreme Court has finalised the new Constitution for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
o It has rejected the ‘One State-One Vote’ recommendation of the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee and altering the cooling-off period for cricket bosses.
o The court disagreed with Justice Lodha that cricket could prosper only if the BCCI was represented by every State and Union Territory.
o The former CJI had relegated cricket associations to the status of associate members.
o Instead, the court restored full BCCI memberships to three associations in Gujarat and Maharashtra each.
o They are the Maharashtra, Mumbai and Vidarbha cricket associations in the State of Maharashtra and the Baroda and Saurashtra cricket associations in the State of Gujarat.
o To utilise territoriality as a basis of exclusion is problematic because it ignores history.
o The concept is based on the contributions made by such associations to the development of cricket and its popularity
o The judgement has been pronounced by the Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who wrote the judgment.
o The Bench agreed that the National Cricket Club and the Cricket Club of India did not deserve to be full members in BCCI.
o The court gave Services Sports Control Board, the Railways and the Association of Universities full membership in the BCCI yet Lodha Panel had suggested full membership to associations with no state entity.
o In case of varsities, the court described them as a nucleus for encouraging the game of cricket among players of the college-going generation.
o The Bench saw eye-to-eye with Justice Lodha’s conclusion that the game will be better off without cricketing oligopolies.
o To this end, the court supported the recommendation of the Lodha panel that cricket administrators should undergo a cooling-off period before contesting elections to BCCI or State associations.Yet the court has opted for colling of after two terms instead of one term
o Cooling-off must be accepted as a means to prevent a few individuals from regarding the administration of cricket as a personal turf.
o Justice Lodha had suggested that the cooling-off period should kick in for a cricket administrator after his every tenure of three years in office. Instead, the court said an administrator needs to cool-off only after two consecutive terms of six years in office, whether in BCCI or a State association or a combination of both.
o Six years in continuation, is a sufficiently long period for experience and knowledge gained to be deployed in the interest of the game without at the same time resulting in a monopoly of power
o The Supreme Court has not taken decision on the age bar of 70 years for joining BCCI.
o The decision on the 9 years total tenure in State Bodies and BCCI is yet pending.