BCCI acts as a public body and should hence fall under RTI act, says Law commission
An independent law commission has asked the government of India to bind the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) under the Right to information (RTI) act as the former asserts the BCCI to be public body. The Central government had previously declared BCCI as a National Sports Federation.
After the Lodha reforms saga in 2015, the officials involved with the Board of Control for Cricket in India have been on a tight leash regarding varying issues. The formation of the Committee of Administrators (CoA) has also been breathing down the neck of the BCCI officials for a while now.
The latest issue that has sprung up is that of the BCCI being subjected to the Right to Information (RTI) act. An independent law commission has recommended that since the BCCI acts as a public body for all means and purposes, it should be treated like one too and hence be subjected to the RTI act.
"Its own Memorandum of Association states that the board's objects and purposes are to control, improve quality, lay down policies pertaining to the game of cricket in India as well as select teams to represent India at international fora," the panel noted.
The law panel, who handed in their report to the Law minister on Wednesday, has claimed that for all practical and intentional purposes the BCCI would inadvertently act as a National Sports Federation (NSF) and thus, is a public body. The panel further added that the BCCI must be held accountable for any violations of the basic human rights of all the stakeholders involved.
The panel also brought up past rulings from the Supreme Court, where a public body was described as "a body which is performing a 'public function' when it seeks to achieve some collective benefit for the public or a section of the public and is accepted by the public or that section of the public as having authority to do so."
The independent committee also observed that the "BCCI enjoys a monopoly status in the cricketing domain, which is recognised by the Union government as well as the ICC, the international governing body of cricket".
In the past, the Lodha committee had also ‘strongly recommended’ that the BCCI be brought under the RTI act.
"The answer of the minister (in Lok Sabha) clearly shows that the government has been treating BCCI as an NSF, and therefore it should also be treated as a 'public authority' in terms of section 2(h) of the RTI Act," the commission noted.