A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar has accepted a petition seeking to implement the court-appointed Lodha Panel's sweeping reforms for the BCCI, on other sporting federations as well.
The petition had been filed in the form of a PIL by a group of 28 sports persons, including former hockey player Ashok Kumar, as well as former swimmer and Olympian Nisha Millet. According to the petition, "there are several instances of mismanagement and corruption in various National Sports Federations which have caused the downfall of sporting activities."
What does this mean?
The petition includes three respondents - the Union of India, the Sports Authority of India and the Indian Olympic association. The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the three informing them that they have been made a party to the case. This means that the Supreme Court will now hear the matter and decide whether the Lodha recommendations be implemented on the other sports federations in India. However, issuing the notice is simply the first step in the matter.
What is the next step?
After the Supreme Court issues a notice, it could take anywhere from four to six weeks for the matter to be heard. The fact that there are three respondents also has its challenges. "They will have to file a joint response. Here you are talking of bodies which are co-dependent but also independent of each other," says Amit Pai, lawyer for the petitioners.
What will happen to the sports bodies?
The national sports bodies are not named as respondents in the petition. "They will intervene at a later stage," explains Pai. "We haven't added them because the national sports code already takes care of all of this. But there is lot of lacunae in the national sports code which are corrected by Lodha and the prayer of the petitioners is to ensure that those corrections made by the Lodha panel are incorporated into other national sports as well."
But aren't the Lodha Panel recommendations meant for the cricket body?
Lawyers for the petitioners say that while some of the recommendations made by the Lodha Panel are cricket specific, others are equally applicable across sports. Among the recommendations that they consider non-cricket specific include the disqualification of office-bearers who are not Indian citizens, and disqualifying members if they hold any office or post in another sports association or federation apart from cricket.
This would prevent a repeat of the recent incident where Suresh Kalmadi and Abhay Chautala, who both face criminal charges, were conferred honorary titles of life presidents by the IOA.
So this case will have nothing to do with cricket?
Not quite. While admitting the petition, the Supreme Court also tagged the case alongside a pending matter being heard regarding the appointment of administrators for the BCCI.
"The BCCI matter is being heard by a specialist bench (comprising justice Deepak Mishra, AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud). The court felt why can't this matter be heard by that bench only," says Venkita Subramoniam, lawyer for the petitioners.
"The BCCI matter is in the last stage. It will help us because the court feels that if they are taking a strong action in this matter, they will do the same for the other sports bodies also."