BCCI Under Fresh SC Scanner: Why Should Cricket Bodies Stay Outside New Sports Law?

The Supreme Court’s latest intervention in the BCCI’s affairs is not an isolated development. It is the newest chapter in a more than decade-long legal battle over how Indian cricket should be governed, dating back to the landmark BCCI v Cricket Association of Bihar proceedings.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, has asked the BCCI and state cricket associations why they should not come under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025, and why the service conditions of their office-bearers should remain outside the new law.

The question is significant because the BCCI already operates under a governance framework shaped by the Supreme Court. Following the IPL spot-fixing controversy and the Cricket Association of Bihar case, the court appointed the Justice R M Lodha Committee, whose reforms were accepted in 2016. The process brought changes to tenure, cooling-off periods, conflicts of interest and the structure of cricket administration.

The latest dispute involves a new statutory framework prescribing requirements concerning elections, executive committees, athlete representation and governance. If applied to cricket, some existing BCCI and state-association rules could therefore face scrutiny.

Yet the BCCI has already taken a position in a recent Odisha High Court matter, arguing that cricket had not been notified as a designated sport under the new framework and that its existing constitutional arrangements should continue.

The issue also carries an unavoidable political backdrop. BCCI secretary Jay Shah is the son of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, even as the cricket board has consistently maintained that it is financially self-sustaining and administratively independent of the government. That combination makes any question of greater statutory oversight particularly sensitive, although the Supreme Court’s present proceedings concern the legal status of BCCI rather than political connections.

At its core, the dispute is therefore about how far BCCI’s autonomy can extend when Parliament has created a statutory governance framework for Indian sport. And for a board as powerful and financially influential as BCCI, the answer could set a precedent well beyond cricket.