President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India Anurag Thakur on Wednesday denied having lied under oath in the Supreme Court and said there was “no question of perjury”. During a hearing on December 15 over the ongoing battle between the cricketing body and the Justice Lodha Committee, amicus curiae Gopal Subramaniam had said Thakur had lied under oath when he denied seeking a letter from the International Cricket Council.

Thakur further claimed that the board’s reservations on a few of the recommendations could not be conveyed as the Lodha panel had not given them time in the past two months, ANI reported. “We called for a meeting time and again to convey that some members did not agree with a few of Justice Lodha’s recommendations,” the BCCI chief said. “But the committee did not give us time in the past two months.”

Advertisement

ICC official Dave Richardson had earlier alleged that Thakur wanted a letter signed from the council stating that the appointments sought by the Supreme Court-appointment committee would breach the board’s autonomy and amount to government interference. “Why are you trying to mislead the court? If you want to escape perjury charges, you ought to apologise,” the bench told Thakur during the December 15 hearing. In his affidavit, Thakur had denied allegations that he had asked the ICC for a letter against the Lodha panel’s recommendations.

The Lodha committee was formed after the spot-fixing and betting scandal emerged during the 2013 leg of the Indian Premier League. On October 6, the apex court had directed the BCCI to either implement the Lodha recommendations or face consequences. However, on October 15, the BCCI had decided to oppose some of the “impractical” reforms suggested by the committee. The two sides have been at loggerheads over a few recommendations such as the one vote per state and one person per post rule, the age cap for office-bearers and the cooling-off period between tournaments.