State cricket associations must implement Lodha report: SC

New Delhi, May 2: The Supreme Court on Monday reiterated its stance that all state cricket associations have to adhere to the recommendations of Justice R.M. Lodha led panel on structural reforms in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

"Once BCCI is reformed, it will go down the line and all cricket associations will have to reform themselves if they want to associate with it. The committee constituted in the wake of match-fixing and spot-fixing allegations was a serious exercise and not futile exercise," Chief Justice T.S. Thakur-led bench of the apex court said on monday.

The bench said that the recommendations needed to be implemented now after counsel for the Haryana Cricket Association said the panel's findings were mere recommendations and some of them cannot be implemented. The Haryana Cricket Association has been objecting to the recommendations of the Lodha panel.

"It will no longer remain just recommendations if we say it has to be implemented. It was called recommendations as some of the findings of the committee were implemented by BCCI during the deliberations itself and some were not implemented."

"We are hearing the issue because we are seeing whether the recommendations which have not been implemented can be implemented or not," the bench added.

"Justice R.M. Lodha Committee has said that what has been done is just cosmetic and what is required is not cosmetic reforms but more than that."