Supreme Court to take call on Lodha report in three weeks

The Supreme Court of India has currently put the Lodha report on hold for a period of three weeks. In addition, there will be no hearing for the following three weeks and the two judges on the bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice Ibrahim Kalifulla, will submit the written judgement to the concerned parties. However, the judgment will certainly be delivered before the 21st of July before the retirement of Justice Kalifulla.

The arguments for the BCCI were wrapped up by the legal counsel for the board, KK Venugopal. The defence reportedly lasted about 90 minutes as Venugopal reiterated that the BCCI was happy to implement all of the recommendations stated in the Lodha report. In May, former BCCI president Shashank Manohar had stated five recommendations the board was opposed to advertisements between overs during a match broadcast, ‘one state, one vote’, the presence of two members from IPL franchises on the league’s governing council, the formation of an apex council, and a cap on the tenure of the office-bearers.

“A total of Rs 141 crore has been given to GCA from 2010-11. When Justice Mudgal was appointed (by Delhi High Court to oversee the conduct of the fourth Test against South Africa last year) he could not believe the sorry state of affairs (at the DDCA). In Saurashtra one whole family are the members of a cricket association,” Subramanium told the court.

“How many members can live in 48 square metres? But from one such address, there are 14 members in the DDCA,” Subramanium said. When Justice Thakur asked whether all 14 members were from one family, Subramanium said that was not the case: “Puris, Walias, Ahluwalias, all under one roof that is only 48 square metres.”

Also read – When Virat asks me I should have an answer: Ajinkya Rahane

“If you are giving Rs 200 crore are there many verifications being done, are there safeguards against misappropriation? If you had a system in place, this [GCA] would not have happened today,” Justice Thakur said.