The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has always upheld that it is not a national sports federation. However, now in order to prolong the tenures of President Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah, the BCCI is invoking national interest and trying to amend its rule 6.4 of the constitution, according to a report in The Wire.
The BCCI is seeking the Supreme Court’s permission to amend Rule 6.4 of its constitution, in ‘public and national interest’.
Clause 6.4 of the BCCI’s constitution reads: “An office-bearer who has held any post for two consecutive terms either in a state association or in the BCCI (or in a combination of both) shall not be eligible to contest any further election without completing a cooling-off period of three years.”
The terms of both Ganguly and Shah ended last month and they won’t be eligible to contest again for their respective posts.
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In its petition in the SC, BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal said: “…Any provision which has a direct and indirect effect of restricting a person with rich and varied experience whereby they have acquired and strengthened the organizing capacity, finance generating capacity and administrative skills will be to the detriment of the game of the cricket and would, therefore, necessarily be against ‘public interest’ and ‘national interest’ as our teams play against teams of all cricket playing countries.”
BCCI is also seeking to modify rule 6.5, which states that any member who has attained the age of 70 years shall be disqualified from being considered as an office-bearer.
The BCCI has said, "…[A] person necessarily passes through many terms in the other two tiers (district and state level) before he is experienced to be able to effectively contribute to BCCI in the larger ‘national interest”.
However the BCCI has maintained its standing as a private body and in 2004, BCCI counsel K.K. Venugopal told the apex court, “If India plays England, it is a match played by the official team of BCCI and not the official team of India… We do not even fly the national flag nor do we use any national emblem in the activities of the Board.”
When contacted, Justice Lodha told The Wire, “I don’t feel like giving any statement on BCCI as I feel it is demeaning to speak on BCCI‘s functioning.”
