Kolkata: Justice R.M Lodha, who is the head of the Lodha Committee appointed by the Supreme Court said on Saturday that it was indeed very ,’unfortunate’ that even though a year has passed since the apex court came up with the verdict, none of those recommendations has been implemented till now.
Incidentally, this happened on the same day when the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators was supposed to discuss their next move on these reforms.
“I am sad and it’s unfortunate. CoA was appointed about six months back. There was sufficient time to implement the order. It’s not a happy moment and it’s quite pleasant,” Justice Lodha said.
Earlier in January this year, the Committee of Administrators was appointed by the Supreme Court which was headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai. The main function of the four member body was keep a watch and also administer the everyday work that happened in the BCCI. The appointment of the CoA was thus an interim solution which would ensure that the reforms suggested by the Lodha Committee were implemented.
In the same month, BCCI president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke was relieved of their duties as the Supreme Court felt that the both of them were obstructions to the appropriate implementation of the Lodha reforms.
On July 18 2016, the apex court passed a judgement to implement the recommendations of the Lodha Committee.
Lodha added, “It is unfortunate because on July 18, 2016 Supreme Court passed the order after hearing BCCI at length. Now after almost one year, when the president and secretary have been removed by the Supreme Court, we are nowhere near the implementation of the jugdement of the Supreme Court.”
In the last SGM of the BCCI, there was a failure on the part of the state associations to adopt the Lodha recommendations despite it being of utmost priority in their agenda.
Also, according to reports, the CoA had no choice but to seek the help of the Supreme Court in enforcing the reforms.
There has been a lot of member units who have filed affidavits in the Supreme Court against the implementations of the recommendations of the Lodha Committee.
The CoA had suggested the state bodies to filter their objections to these recommendations and make it into few points and had asked them to submit the same to the court for reconsideration.
The CoA had also focused on the same thing in their meeting with the state associations before BCCI’S SGM.
A seven-member committee was formed by the BCCI to, ‘identify the few critical points in respect of the said judgement (July 18, 2016 Supreme Court order) for the General Body of the BCCI to consider before it’s submission to the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”
While speaking on few of these recommendations, he said, ” All these things have been argued before the Supreme Court multiple times. They have been rejected. Supreme Court has put seal of approval. There can’t be more superior forum than SC. All these points have been rejected before the SC when they had argued. What is the point of saying all these now?”
In his interaction with a news channel, the former Chief Justice of India commented on one of the members of the CoA- Ramachandra Guha who resigned from the body some time back. He said that his powerful resignation letter speaks for itself.
He said, “He must have found some internal functioning not satisfactory. I can’t comment on that. Guha spelt out the reasons for resignation in his letter and that speaks for itself.” The next hearing of the Supreme Court on this issue will be held on the 14th of July.