A day before the Cabinet took up the National Sports (Development) Bill, 2011 (“Bill”) for consideration, a reputed astrology site read:

“As per the prasna chart, Sun which indicates Government, is in its own sign Leo. This signifies that the Government would like to pass the Sports Bill 2011 to bring Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) under scanner. Jupiter is the planet indicating law and Jupiter’s aspects to the Sun indicates towards the chances of the bill to be passed in the current parliament session. Moreover, Saturn indicates general public and Mars indicate sports and Saturn’s aspect to Mars indicates that powers of BCCI will be curtailed.”

The predictions followed a heated debate on the pros and cons of the Bill, with ace cricketers Kapil Dev, Mohammad Azharudin, Kirti Azad, Ajay Jadeja et al backing the Maken driven sports ministry's move to get some semblance of accountability into sports bodies.

The Bill sought to grant recognition to existing national sports federations relating to sports listed in the second schedule. The list of sports listed in the said second schedule includes ‘cricket’.  The BCCI is working in activities relating to the sport of ‘cricket’ in India and hence would have come within the ambit of the Bill and thus under the supervision and guidance of the sports ministry and the multitude of regulatory bodies sought to be set up under the said Bill.

The Bill sought to set up a council to advise the Government on all issues referred to is in order to put in place an institutional mechanism for cooperation and partnership between the government, the national olympic committee, national sports federations like BCCI and other stakeholders. The said Council, which was intended to have an advisory and consultative role, was to consist of eminent athletes and heads of various national and state level sports bodies.

The Bill also sought to clearly set out the inter-se roles and responsibilities of the Government, the BCCI and the Sports Authority of India (SAI). The Bill further provided that the Government would not recognize more than one national sports federation for cricket and that a federation recognized by the Government would (i) solely be entitled to use the term ‘of India’ or ‘Indian’ as a part of its name, (ii) will have to permit 25 percent representation to sports persons on its executive board and (iii) would be entitled to discharge other functions and duties mandated by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Therefore, if the BCCI failed to be recognised by the Government under the Bill, it would cease to be representing Indian in international cricket as well.

The Bill further sought to bring BCCI under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) and under the oversight and accountability to the sports ministry which obviously did not find favour with the BCCI.

The scale of the game of cricket in India, the turnover of BCCI and the huge amount of money of the sports fans involved in the sports of cricket in India in recent years has increasingly raised the demands for transparency, accountability and oversight over the gaming activity of cricket. However, the Cabinet and Maken’s senior colleagues do not seem to be sharing this concern. Maken has echoed the frustration of the many who were looking out to a new regime under the Bill and expecting a more transparent BCCI when he called out to team Anna for its help to have the Bill tabled in Parliament.

For now, astrologers or ace former cricketers or the millions of cricket fans have all been proved wrong by the Cabinet, which has chosen to eat out of the hands of the bosses of BCCI for now. Will it take another Anna-Lila to make the Cabinet see reason with one of its own colleagues and other on the issue!