The Supreme Court tomorrow at around 11 in the morning is going to enunciate its all important order after a long-standing tussle between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with apex body-appointed Lodha Committee for the reconstitution in the cricket governing body which also includes the crucial decision on the current BCCI supremo Anurag Thakur.
The Chief Justice of India TS Thakur, who is all set to retire on January 3, is heading the three-judge panel, has warned that Thakur ‘will have to go to jail if he doesn’t apologise’.
“Once we pronounce order you will have no place to go but jail… What is your intent? Once an order from Supreme Court is passed you went to ICC to ask them to write that the reforms suggested amounts to judicial interference. Why are you trying to mislead the court. If you want to escape perjury charges you ought to apologise. At every stage you have been trying to obstruct the process of reform,” TS Thakur said.
Earlier, the apex court had warned Thakur to be booked for perjury after coming up with the affidavit which became an obstruction after BCCI has overlooked to embrace further reforms in cricket. Perjury is a criminal offence for which a person can be jailed up to seven-year.
It was learnt the 42-year-old Thakur did not request International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Shashank Manohar in an affidavit for writing about the ‘government interference’ after the appointment of a member of the CAG that further has opposed to the reform of ‘one state, one vote’ procedure.
To make things clear, Amicus Curiae Gopal Subramaniam had urged Manohar to write to the apex body to ‘set the record straight’.
On the other side, BCCI has made it clear that the state cricket associations are the autonomous bodies and it won’t be able to force such entities to completely adopt the process of reformation.
As the Lodha Committee has suggested many things for the reformation, the apex court has stated BCCI to be a ‘public body’ after the rift became an open debate. The former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha stated the BCCI has played the role of ‘obstructionist’ for the reforms in the body.