Supreme Court to rethink BCCI’s “One State- One Vote” policy

The apex court in its 2016 verdict had approved a Justice Lodha panel's recommendation, which allowed one state to have only one full-time membership and voting rights in the Board of Control for Cricket in India. It had created a massive controversy among the cricket associations with the board strongly standing against it.

Numerous iconic bodies of Indian cricket like Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), Cricket Club of India (CCI), Vidarbha Cricket Association, Baroda Cricket Association and Saurashtra Cricket Association, had consequently lost their membership and voting rights. These bodies belong to Maharashtra and Gujarat, who only have two separate memberships and, as a result, two votes at BCCI’s AGM.

“We may change one-state, one-vote norm. We are not against north-eastern states getting a vote each. They must also come up. When one points out number of no-balls bowled by a north-eastern team in a match, it is an injustice to them. If Afghanistan, with years of effort and investment, can become a Test playing nation, why not north-eastern states?” said the bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud.

Apart from that, the court also hinted a good deal at scraping the ongoing three-selector policy, which has allowed players only having Test cricket experience to be eligible for the national selectors’ posts. 

“There are many experienced players like Rajinder Goel and Padmakar Shivalkar who excelled in domestic cricket yet did not play Tests. We must look for experience, not the number of Tests played by the selectors,” it added.