A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed against the BCCI in Madras High Court for allegedly representing the country without any proper official approval from the government.

As per a report in PTI, a division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam have issued notice to the BCCI and other authorities regarding the same. The division bench has posted February 7, 2019 as the next hearing date.

"The BCCI is registered as a society in Tamil Nadu under the Societies Registration Act and always denied its status of being a State under Article 12 of the Constitution," the petitioner, Geeta Rani, from Delhi said.

"It is worth noting that even at the time of registration, no recognition or affiliation was asked from the government to represent India by BCCI and presuming it to be sole authority to govern cricket, without any sanction, the BCCI started to act as (the) governing body of cricket as well as representative of India," she added.

Apparently, the BCCI has no legal right to use the word 'India' in its name, nor does it have the right to represent a team called 'India', as the name implies patronage from the Indian government, the petitioner contended.

According to the petitioner, the BCCI has continuously refused to identify itself as a public authority and is also not officially recognised as a national sports federation. The petitioner claimed that the selection process carried out by BCCI was never transparent and has always been biased.

The petitioner also cited that like any other sport, cricket should also be governed by the union ministry of sports.

(With PTI inputs)