In a major setback to BCCI, the Centre today declared in Supreme Court that the cricket board was an institution of ‘‘the State’’ and a writ petition could therefore be filed against it.This strengthens the writ petition filed by Zee TV, challenging the BCCI’s ‘‘mala fide’’ cancellation of the tender process for telecasting all cricket matches held in India over the next four years.The Government’s stand, announced before a five-judge bench by additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran, is a reversal of what it had said early this year in a PIL filed by advocate Rahul Mehra before the Delhi High Court.When BCCI’s counsel K K Venugopal pointed out the conflicting positions taken by the Government in the two cases, Justice Santosh Hegde told Parasaran to ask his client to spell out its stand in an affidavit tomorrow.In his oral submissions, Parasaran said that BCCI for all its autonomy could be treated as a state authority or instrumentality because of the measure of ‘‘administrative, financial and functional control’’ exercised over it by the Government. Parasaran substantiated this by referring to instances when the Government refused permission to BCCI for the cricket team to play against a particular country or in a particular centre.Besides, the Government had issued guidelines in 2001 to all apex sports bodies, including BCCI, for regulating their activities. The guidelines make it clear that the Government reserved the right to scrutinise their accounts or appoint an auditor. Zee TV’s counsel Harish Salve asserted that the writ petition was maintainable as BCCI performed a public duty by selecting the national team.Venugopal, on the other hand, said that the court should dismiss the writ petition without going into its merits as BCCI was an autonomous body with the Government having no control over it.
