With a strong recommendation to lawmakers to legalise betting in cricket for all except cricket players, officials and administrators, the Supreme Court-appointed Justice R.M. Lodha Committee report said that government servants and ministers should be banned from holding posts in the BCCI. Here are the recommendations:
Legalize betting
The panel felt that the move would help curb corruption in the game and recommended that except for players and officials, people should be allowed to place bets on registered sites.
Separate governing bodies
Separate governing bodies for IPL and BCCI and one association of each state will be a full member of BCCI and have a right to vote.
Formation of the governing council
The chief governing body in the IPL will be known as the governing council, which will comprise nine members. The secretary and the treasurer of the BCCI will be ex-officio members of this IPL governing council.
Two other members of the IPL governing council will be nominated/elected by the full members. Of the remaining five, two will be the nominees of franchises, one will be a representative of the players association (so one needs to be formed), and one will be a nominee of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India's office.
Clean Chit to Sundar Raman
The panel gave a clean chit to former IPL COO Sundar Raman in connection with the 2013 spot-fixing and betting scandal, citing lack of evidence against him.
Robust agent registration system
A robust agent registration system to safeguard players and there will be a steering committee to include Mohinder Amarnath, former India women's captain Diana Eduljee, and Anil Kumble. They will take up matter with BCCI for formation of players' association in light of suggestions from the report.
Authorities with distinct Role
Three other authorities which will have a distinct role:
a. An ombudsman, whose task is to preside over the internal dispute resolution mechanism in the BCCI, grievances regarding access to stadiums and ticket selling process can also be brought before the ombudsman by anyone. The ombudsman should be a judge of the Supreme Court or a retired judge of the high court.
b. The second authority is an ethics officer whose task is to administer the issues relating to the conflict of interest, misdemeanour, misbehaviour or corruption issues. The ethics officer proposed by Lodha would be a former high court judge.
c. The third authority proposed is an electoral officer who will oversee the entire BCCI election process relating to the office bearers, namely preparation of voters list, publication, disputes over eligibility of the office bearers. All these matters relating to election shall be overseen by the electoral officer. The electoral officer will be nominated at least two weeks before the date of election, and such electoral officer should be a former election commissioner of India.
Office bearers of BCCI
The office bearers of BCCI - president, VP, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer, certain eligibility criteria has been fixed like, he must be an Indian, he must not be above age of 70, he must not be insolvent, he must not be a minister or a government servant, and who has not held office in the BCCI for a cumulative period for nine years.
Tenure of Office Bearers
Each office bearer will have tenure of three years and no office bearer can hold the office for more than three terms with the rider that there will be a cooling off after each term - in other words no office bearer can hold terms consecutively.
Uniformity in the structure
There should be uniformity in the structure and constitution of state associations, which recommendations like the associations must not have office for life or office for more than nine years - separation of social and cricket activities in the state associations, no proxy voting.
Their accounts must be audited by the BCCI to maintain transparency in functioning. They must comply with all the directives of the BCCI in putting in place issues such as resolution of conflict of interest, administering the code of conduct, behaviour, corruption issues - any breach of the directives by state associations would disentitle them from the grant of the subsidy and other grants from the BCCI.
Current Affairs: 4th January, 2016 Current Affairs Round up December, 2015.
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