Indian cricket: Don’t throw the baby out with bathwater

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, there are fears that the unremitting judicial intrusion into the affairs of  Indian cricket might end up harming the long-term interests of the sport rather than eliminating the scope for wrong-doing. However well-intentioned the Supreme Court is in determinedly forcing the recommendations of the Lodha Committee down the throat of a reluctant Board of Control for Cricket in India, it is not hard to see that these will not help advance the cause of cricket. At a time when India  has established its  supremacy  in the  cricketing  world, at a time when a new crop of talented players has ensured smooth generational change, a wholesale reordering of the BCCI is bound to cause avoidable disruption. Whether or not the judges like it, the argument of jurisdiction advanced by the BCCI has not been fully met. Registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act way back in the late-1920s, strictly speaking what the Supreme Court is doing to the BCCI is questionable meddling unsupported by law. The right forum to agitate assumed or real  grievance remains the Company Law Board. Period. Given that it is the highest court in the land, it has no doubt the freedom to stretch its jurisdiction far beyond the four corners of law. But it must be said that in the name of Public Interest Litigation, the court has not only expanded its writ beyond what were constitutionally defined roles and functions, but, in several cases, far beyond into uncharted areas. Legal purists will certainly cavil at this judicial overreach, but because the public holds the other branches of the  constitutional order in rather dim light, the higher judiciary has sought to exploit the popular disenchantment to expand its own sphere of influence. Thus you have had  the court determining the height of a controversial hydroelectric dam or the viability of a road widening project. Sooner or later there is bound to be a backlash against judicial excess as well, especially when members of the judiciary too are not above the taint of misconduct. In this respect, we can do no better than  draw  attention to the almost daily verbal gems  emanating from  the retired  Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju. To return to cricket,  granted that what N Srinivasan, the disgraced former czar of BCCI, did was inexcusable. There was a clear conflict of interest in his case which the apex court did well to penalise. But must it use the PIL filed by a disgruntled official of a State cricket body to ride rough shod over the entire edifice of Indian cricket. In its bid to implement the Lodha Committee's recommendations in toto, the  apex court has disregarded even the well-reasoned case argued by the BCCI. Justice and fair play will be a casualty should the apex court ignore pleas for a middle-course, nay, moderation. And there will be a real threat of the baby being thrown out along with the bathwater should the court in its zeal to cleanse the Augean stables of Indian cricket pull down the entire  managerial structure  of the sport. By equating the virtually non-existing Mizoram and Manipur cricket bodies with those of, say, Mumbai or  Delhi, and giving them an equal say in the management of the sport, the court will only create new cliques, new vested interests. The principle of one-State, one-vote reads well on paper but in pragmatic terms it could prove disastrous for  Indian cricket.  The role of money  might in fact grow further when these non-cricketing States come to wield the same power in the selection of BCCI office-bearers as those of the major cricketing centres. That some of the States which are sought to be treated at par with Mumbai, Delhi, UP, etc in cricketing terms do not even have a Ranji team of their own ought to have persuaded the apex court to reconsider its blind faith in the Lodha Committee. Notwithstanding charges of corruption, groupism, empire-building etc, on balance the cricketing officialdom has served the cause of Indian cricket well. It is the richest and the most powerful cricketing body in the International Cricket Council which hitherto was dominated by the English-Australian duopoly. What  the apex court has  done already  is more  than enough to  put the BCCI and the State associations on notice that any future breach of the moral and legal codes would attract stringent punishment. The court should, therefore, avoid driving a coach and four into the entire infrastructure of Indian cricket. Meanwhile, in the interest of complete transparency it is only fair that we are told what the exertions of the Lodha Committee have cost the BCCI thus far in financial terms alone.

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