BCCI Governance Dispute: Odisha High Court Case Challenges Cricket's Rulebook

New Delhi: A legal skirmish in the Odisha High Court has dragged Indian cricket into a fresh governance storm, leaving the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its state units pulling in different directions over the National Sports Governance Act, 2025.

At the heart of the dispute: who really runs cricket in India — the sport’s own constitution or the government’s new law?

BCCI draws a line in Odisha

In an affidavit filed before the Odisha High Court in a case linked to the Odisha Cricket Association’s (OCA) elections, the BCCI has made its position stark. The document, prepared by the board’s legal team and authorised by secretary Devajit Saikia, insists that OCA must hold its elections strictly under the existing BCCI constitution, amended in 2019 after the Lodha Committee recommendations.

The board has gone a step further. It has stated that cricket is not a “designated sport” under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025, and therefore the Act does not apply to it. That single assertion signals clear resistance to coming under the National Sports Board (NSB).

The affidavit underlines the BCCI’s own term-limit safeguards. It notes that OCA already has a similar provision that prevents any office-bearer from serving more than two consecutive terms. On that basis, the BCCI has pressed for “timely elections” in Odisha to prevent any individual from breaching that limit and to “uphold the spirit” of the Supreme Court judgment that had led to the Lodha reforms.

The court will take the matter up again on September 1. By then, the ripples may have spread even wider.

State units caught in the crossfire

Across India, several state associations had been working on a very different assumption. After a sports ministry notice issued in December last year, they believed they could defer fresh elections for certain posts until December 2026.

Now, the BCCI’s stand in court has thrown that belief into doubt.

The flashpoint is the cooling-off period — a concept that reshaped Indian cricket’s power structure when the Lodha recommendations came in. Under the BCCI constitution, senior office-bearers must step away after serving two consecutive terms, creating mandatory breaks in their tenure.

The National Sports Governance Act does not mandate any cooling-off period. It also eases some conflict-of-interest restrictions that had tightened the screws on sports administrators.

The OCA’s current office-bearers argue they are simply following the government’s directions and the leeway granted under the new law. The BCCI, in its affidavit, has taken the opposite view, insisting that its own constitution and the Supreme Court-backed framework cannot be bypassed.

That clash has left state units wondering which rulebook they are actually bound to.

“If the government has notified that sports bodies can defer elections till December 2026, every state unit would believe it can wait until then before holding elections for select posts,” a senior official told TOI, pointing to the confusion now spreading through the system.

Power brokers within the BCCI, the official added, have long argued that continuity in administration is crucial. A sudden shift to strict adherence to the BCCI’s own timelines, against the backdrop of a government advisory to delay polls, threatens that continuity just as a new generation of office-bearers is finding its feet.

“It has also created confusion over the governance of the sport. The state bodies need to know if they have to follow the Sports Governance Act or the BCCI constitution,” the official said.

Parliament praise, RTI shield — and fresh ambiguity

The current standoff comes barely a year after the government projected a far more harmonious picture.

During a parliamentary debate in August 2025, Vijayawada MP and Andhra Cricket Association president Kesineni Sivanath backed the National Sports Governance Act and said the BCCI already followed its core principles. It was also clarified that the government had exempted the BCCI from the Right to Information (RTI) Act because the board did not rely on public funds.

In May, the Central Information Commission reinforced that position, ruling that the BCCI would remain outside the RTI’s ambit and describing the Lodha Committee’s recommendations as “advisory in nature”.

Those two developments seemed to place the BCCI in a comfortable middle ground — recognised as a key sports body, yet shielded from some of the strictest transparency requirements and able to treat Lodha-era reforms with a degree of flexibility.

The Odisha case has disturbed that balance. By arguing that cricket is not a designated sport under the new Act, the BCCI has opened up a new grey zone: it wants the autonomy of a private body, the legitimacy of a national institution, and the freedom to decide which reforms truly bind it.

High stakes for BCCI’s own power structure

The timing of this confrontation is no coincidence. The BCCI held its own elections last September, before the sports ministry’s advisory on deferring polls.

That calendar matters.

BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla will complete six years in office next year. Secretary Devajit Saikia is into his second term and is set to complete six years in 2028. Under the BCCI constitution, both would then hit the mandatory cooling-off phase.

If the BCCI eventually comes under the NSB’s ambit and the National Sports Governance Act takes precedence, that cooling-off clause would no longer apply to its office-bearers. The very safeguard the board is now invoking in Odisha — to prevent anyone from serving more than two consecutive terms — would cease to exist at the national level.

For now, the board is insisting that OCA and other state units honour those term limits and hold elections on time. At the same time, it is pushing back against a law that, if fully applied to cricket, could entrench some of its most powerful figures.

The Odisha High Court will rule on an association’s election schedule. The bigger verdict, though, hangs over something far larger: will Indian cricket continue to be governed by its own rulebook, or will it finally be forced to play by the same law as everyone else?