BCCI misses first Lodha deadline

The BCCI has not come to a decision with regard to implementing the recommendations of the Lodha report at its special general meeting in Mumbai on Friday. The board will reconvene again on Saturday to discuss the issue, effectively meaning that it has missed the deadline of September 30 set by the Lodha Committee for the implementation of the first stage of recommendations that were passed by the Supreme Court order on July 18.

ESPNcricinfo learned that the SGM was adjourned because several members did not have the necessary authorisation from their state associations to attend the meeting, which came to a close within a few minutes of its commencement. IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla said: "The authorisation letters of the representatives from various state associations have not reached, so they have been given one day's time to get the letters from their respective state associations."

When asked if it was a stalling tactic, a southern state association official said the BCCI was merely looking to get the technicalities right. "In the wake of what has been happening, it's important to get everything in order. We don't want a situation where there are complaints on technical grounds."

It is unclear whether the BCCI could be found in contempt of court for missing the deadline. On Wednesday, RM Lodha, the chairman of the committee, had said the matter of contempt of court was for the Supreme Court to decide.

The agenda for Friday's SGM, the BCCI had said, was to "consider directions of Justice (Retd) Lodha Committee in connection with the formal adoption of the new Memorandum of Association and Rules for the BCCI".

On Wednesday the Lodha Committee had submitted a status report, pertaining to the BCCI implementing the recommendations, to the Supreme Court in which it said the board was impeding the process and called for the top BCCI officials to be "superseded" by the court.

The Lodha Committee had asked the BCCI and its state associations to adopt the new Memorandum of Association and Rules by September 30. It had also sent the BCCI two sets of timelines with various deadlines to implement the recommendations within the six-month time frame set by the court - the last of the reforms are to be implemented by December 30. In the status report RM Lodha, the chairman of the committee, said the BCCI had not yet complied with seven timelines, and that it was unlikely the board would do so before the September 30 deadline.

At a hearing following the submission of the status report, the court had told the BCCI that it had one week to respond. "BCCI thinks it is law unto itself," Chief Justice of India TS Thakur was quoted as saying by the Indian Express. "We know how to get our orders implemented. BCCI thinks it is the lord. You better fall in line or we will make you fall in line. The conduct of the BCCI is in poor taste."

The BCCI had also filed a fresh application in the Supreme Court, pleading for the court's July 18 order to be "suspended" until it heard the board's review and curative petitions against the mandatory implementation of most of the Lodha Committee's recommendations. The board had filed a review petition last month against the Supreme Court's order directing it to implement most of the recommendations. In the petition, the BCCI called the court order "unreasoned" and asked for the recusal of chief justice Thakur from its hearing. However, the petition has been lying "in defect" because the court raised technical objections to the petition and asked the BCCI to repair them.

The Lodha Committee - comprising Lodha and retired Supreme Court judges Ashok Bhan and R Raveendran - was formed in January 2015 to determine appropriate punishments for some of the officials involved in the 2013 IPL corruption scandal, and also to propose changes to streamline the BCCI, reform its functioning, prevent sporting fraud and conflict of interest.