The Supreme Court on Friday barred the Board of Control for Cricket in India from releasing money to state associations unless they agreed to abide by the Lodha panel's recommendations.
According to PTI, the court directed 13 state associations, who had received Rs 16.72 crore each from the BCCI, that the money could not be spent until they passed a resolution to implement the suggested reforms by the Justice Lodha Committee.
The judiciary made this decision while providing an interim order in the case to decide whether the Indian cricket body's top brass should be "superseded", as recommended by the Lodha panel. The court set the next date for hearing on October 17.
BCCI president Anurag Thakur was also asked to file a personal affidavit about whether he had asked for a letter of intervention from the chief of the International Cricket Council, David Richardson regarding the recommendations, according to The Indian Express.
In response, the BCCI argued that they were not against implementing reforms, but they faced technical impediments. The court however told the Indian body that they would remove those impediments.
Chief Justice Thakur had criticised the BCCI on Thursday for transferring Rs 400 crore overnight to its state associations, which went against the Lodha panel's recommendations. Justice Thakur said that the BCCI should have exercised transparency when funding state associations, adding that an amount as large as Rs 400 crore cannot be disbursed overnight.
The BCCI's lawyer had then argued that the matter dated back to the 2015-'16 season when broadcasters Star Sports and Sony had given the board compensation for the cancellation of a tournament, and that money was to be given to the state associations.
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