Wanted: A Board of Control to control the BCCI

In 2000, Rahul Mehra, a lawyer and cricket lover, initiated a public interest litigation (PIL) against the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), demanding transparency and accountability in the way cricket is run in the country.

The BCCI responded by arguing that it was a private society and that the Indian team was not a national side, but one picked by the BCCI. Therefore, it could not be subjected to a PIL of any sort.

The court quashed this contention, thus establishing that the BCCI is, indeed, answerable to the public.

Ten years later, the BCCI is embroiled in what is perhaps the biggest controversy in its history. It is facing many uncomfortable questions: why was one man given so much power to run a lucrative league such as the IPL? Why aren’t rules, rather than the whims of an individual, governing important processes such as franchisee auctioning? What prevented others in the BCCI from taking action?

In an interview with DNA, Mehra says we need to take a hard look at the way office-bearers are elected in the BCCI and the state associations that come under it. But the reforms won’t come from within the BCCI; the government has to step in to clean up the act, he says. Excerpts:

Is there a conflict of interest between those running the IPL and those participating in it?
N Srinivasan was treasurer when Sharad Pawar was BCCI president. When Shashank Manohar took over as president, Srinivasan became the honorary secretary of the BCCI. So you are the honorary secretary of the parent body of the IPL. You are also the president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. You also happen to occupy a position in the governing council of IPL — which is a subcommittee of the BCCI and takes all decisions regarding the governing of IPL. And then you are a stakeholder in Chennai Super Kings. Any of your decisions — be it as secretary of the BCCI or governing council member of the IPL — can have a direct impact on Chennai Super Kings. Can there be a clearer case of conflict of interest than this?

Clearly, the administration needs reforms. But how can such reforms be carried out?
Nobody [within the BCCI] will carry them out because they have their vested interests. It has to be an outside agency. It has to be the sports ministry because the BCCI is performing a public function. The government should say we will derecognise you if you don’t toe our line. They could say that we will take away your right to select Team India.

The point is that there has to be political will at the Centre, because obviously this is not going to come from within the BCCI.

The government only acts when there is a hue and cry. The ongoing investigations are highly motivated, but it is still good for the general public. At least something is happening now, which otherwise wouldn’t have.

Do elections at state-level associations also need reforms?
At the local level, the key question is, what kind of electorate do you have? The problem is that you cannot do much about the current electorate since it’s a legacy of the past. But surely, in future, you can ensure that only sportsmen get voting rights. Ultimately, these are not social clubs. These are sporting clubs.

In most associations, you see that there is one individual who has ruled the roost for 30-40 years, and ensured that his cronies, drivers, cooks, peons, relatives, and close friends were inducted as members. Since they happen to be in a majority as members [of the association], time and again the same person keeps coming back to power.

Instead, the BCCI should lay out guidelines whereby, while you might have anyone as a member, voting rights are given only to district-, state-, and international-level players. After all, the office-bearers will be looking at sporting requirements and some relative [of an office-bearer] who has no knowledge about the game is not the ideal person to elect the office-bearers of the association.

When I did my research in 2000, I found that in state associations, not even 5% of the electorate comprises people who have played cricket in their life. If you don’t understand the technicalities and nuances of the game, how can you elect the right person? That’s why there is so much politics, backbiting, and all the dirt that’s coming out now.

For example, Narendra Modi might be a great administrator and a great chief minister, but what are his credentials to come into cricket? Overnight, one saw him catapulted into the central politics of the BCCI because the Gujarat Cricket Association elected him as president. How can that happen? There has to be some work that you have done at the grassroots, some credentials — apart from being a state or national leader — for you to be able to run a sports body.

What about the current manner of electing the top functionaries of the BCCI?
First of all, there should be a standardised way of registering a member association. There are some member associations of the BCCI which are registered under the Societies Registration Act. Others, like the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), are registered under the Companies Act. The BCCI should standardise this. Member associations should all be registered under the Societies Registration Act or under the Companies Act.

In a body registered under the Societies Registration Act, you can’t vote by proxy. But in a body registered under the Companies Act, proxy voting is allowed. This aspect is critical because in the proxy system, there are proxy forms that can be filled and misused in certain ways. However, in an organisation registered under the Societies Registration Act, there is no proxy system and voters have to be present at the time of voting.

The key, however, is that voting has to be by secret ballot. Most of the time, we see that there is no polling officer and no fixed agenda. An independent person is not present to monitor the election process. There are only people who are motivated to see one side win. So power, money, muscle all come into play.

To clean things up, you should have an independent returning officer. You need to have a very honourable person — say, a jurist —and request him to conduct the election. There are around 30 state associations, apart from one or two organisations like the Railways which are members of the BCCI. All of them have a single vote [to elect the BCCI office-bearers].

Generally, a single member association sends two representatives to the BCCI at the time of election. So who is going to cast the vote eventually? That is decided by the BCCI. And who decides [within the BCCI]?
The incumbent office-bearer decides who will be voting in the subsequent election. So there is a clear conflict of interest. I believe every election should be telecast on TV. If you can’t do that, at least have it recorded on video. Every minute of the election should be on tape. This is standard practice anywhere.

What will it take to clean this up?
To clear the current mess and in the larger interest of the game, I feel there should be a regulatory body. The form of the regulatory body could be debated. It could be government-run or it could consist of distinguished people from society. But, clearly, the regulation is never going to come from within the BCCI.

How can we ensure that there is no cartelisation among the IPL franchisees?
By being fair and transparent. For instance, the moment the auctioning became transparent, teams like Kochi came on board. Otherwise there would only have been a cartel.

A larger point here is that if the prime minister of India or the state chief minister falls under the RTI, why not a public body like the BCCI? If you go by the law, you have to be a government body or have to be substantially funded by the state [to fall under the purview of the RTI]. Now, the BCCI can say it isn’t funded by the state. But this can actually be challenged, saying that they are given exemptions worth thousands of crores in the form of stadium costs, that they are offered thousands of crores worth of security for every game, that they are being allowed to use the name ‘India’, etc. You can really come down hard on them.

Recently, one of the IPL franchise owners suggested on a TV channel that since the franchisees are the ones putting in the money, they should run the IPL. What is wrong with that idea?
This is nonsense. If these eight or ten people are allowed to run the IPL, then what is the requirement of the BCCI? The BCCI has been given de-facto recognition by the government of India to run the game of cricket on its behalf. To now say that the franchisees are pumping in money and therefore should be allowed to govern and choose a leader amongst themselves would sound the death knell of a tournament like the IPL.

We are already debating whether these matches have been betted on and fixed, but these eight people may well decide amongst themselves which team should win each year. That would be a joke of sorts. Every year they will keep siphoning money for themselves and keep showing losses and diverting funds overseas. Who will stop that? Unless and until there is a watchdog — a role which the BCCI should have assumed and didn’t — you can’t allow corporate entities a free run.

Who is to blame for the current controversy?
The fault lies mainly with the watchdog. If Lalit Modi was doing what he is alleged to have done, what were the BCCI and the IPL governing council members, including independent watchdogs like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, and MAK Pataudi, doing? Why were they giving their assent to every document or decision taken by Lalit Modi? Weren’t they supposed to look into all the documents?

They have lawyers on the governing council. The BCCI president himself is a senior lawyer in Nagpur. You don’t get bigger names than these. What were these people doing there?

The fault lies with the BCCI, not just Lalit Modi. Modi was allowed to have a free run. The real fault lies with people who let him have the free run.