A PIL in Madras High Court seeks legal action against BCCI for representing the country

A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to authorities for initiating legal action against the BCCI for allegedly representing the country without any proper official approval from the government.

A division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam issued notice to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and other authorities concerned, returnable by February 7, 2019 and posted further hearing to that date.

The petitioner, Geeta Rani, from Delhi said, "The BCCI is registered as a society in Tamil Nadu under the Societies Registration Act and always denied its status of being a State under Article 12 of the Constitution.

It is worth noting that even at the time of registration, no recognition or affiliation was asked from the government to represent India by BCCI and presuming it to be sole authority to govern cricket, without any sanction, the BCCI started to act as (the) governing body of cricket as well as representative of India."

BCCI has no legal sanctity to use the word 'India' in its name, nor does it have the right to represent a team called 'India', as the name implies patronage from the Indian government, the petitioner contended.

According to the petitioner, the BCCI has continuously refused to identify itself as a public authority and is also not officially recognised as a national sports federation.

The petitioner alleged that the players' selection process carried out by the organisation was never transparent and has always been discriminatory.

Like any other sport, cricket should also be governed by the union ministry of sports, the petitioner contended.

-PTI