The Central Information Commission (CIC) on Monday ruled that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) does not fall under the ambit of a “public authority” under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, holding that the Cricket Board remains an independent private body not substantially funded or controlled by the government, and warned that excessive regulatory oversight could disrupt its “finely balanced economic structure”.
In a detailed order issued by Information Commissioner BR Ramesh, the Commission reconsidered the case as directed by the Madras High Court in September 2025, which remanded the matter to the CIC for further adjudication after reviewing the 2018 CIC judgment that had earlier declared BCCI a “public authority” under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act.
The Commission held that the BCCI, registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, was neither created by or under the Constitution, nor was it constituted by an enactment of Parliament or State Legislature, nor was it constituted by any Government notification or executive order.
“Case law, statutory interpretation, and subsequent legislative developments consistently indicate that BCCI is not owned, controlled, or substantially financed, directly or indirectly, by funds provided by the appropriate government,” the Immigration and Naturalization Commission said while rejecting the petition filed by Geeta Rani.
Relying on Supreme Court precedents including Zee Telefilms Ltd Vs Union of India (2005), Thalappalam Service Cooperative Bank Ltd Vs State of Kerala (2013) and Dalco Engineering Pvt Ltd Vs Satish Prabhakar Padhye (2010), the CIC held that the statutory requirements under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act were mandatory and were not fulfilled in the case of the BCCI.
To be sure, the Supreme Court in the judgment in the Zee Telefilms Ltd case held that though the BCCI has significant public functions in regulating cricket in India, it is not a “state” within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution because of the absence of deep and wide-ranging governmental control over its affairs.
The CIC on Monday followed suit, with the order asserting that “there is no deep or broad control” exercised by the government over the management or affairs of the BCCI, that the government had no role in the appointment of its officers, and that the board remained financially independent through revenue generated from broadcast rights, sponsorship, ticket sales and commercial arrangements. The report noted that “mere supervision or regulation by the state is not sufficient to change the special character of the organization.”
The Commission also clarified that tax breaks or concessions generally available under the law cannot amount to “substantial funding” by the state under the Right to Information Act.
It also noted that although the Supreme Court in Board of Control for Cricket in India v. Bihar Cricket Association (2016) had emphasized on transparency and governance reforms in cricket administration, it had not declared the BCCI to be a public authority under the RTI Act.
Even as the Supreme Court accepted and implemented the Lodha Committee’s recommendations to restructure cricket governance in the broader public interest, the CIC added: “The judgment does not hold that BCCI is financially dependent on the government or is substantially financed from government funds. On the contrary, it was understood that BCCI’s financial structure is independently supported by its media rights, sponsorship, broadcast revenues, ticketing, licensing and commercial cricket operations.”
The Commission stated that mere public importance, regulatory supervision or performance of public functions cannot substitute for the statutory requirements as stipulated in Section 2(h) of the RTI Act.
The case arose out of an RTI application filed before the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports seeking information relating to the BCCI. The Ministry responded that the requested information was not available with it and that the application could not be transferred to the BCCI as it was not declared a public authority under the RTI Act.
The CIC agreed with this position, noting that under the RTI framework, a public authority is obliged to provide only information that is “available, held or lawfully accessible” to it.
In extensive observations accompanying the ruling, the committee reflected on the economic structure of Indian cricket and cautioned against simplistic assumptions that increased government oversight would necessarily lead to improved fairness or administration.
“The evolution of the Board of Control for Cricket in India from a colonial-era governing body to the financial center of global cricket reflects one of the most important transformations in the economics of contemporary sport,” the CIC said.
The committee pointed to the Indian Premier League’s franchise- and media-rights-based structure, noting that the BCCI operates as a “largely independent, market-driven entity” with revenues running into “tens of thousands of crores”.
He warned that imposing a model of oversight that relies solely on government control “could lead to unintended consequences, including inefficiency or disruptions to a finely balanced economic structure.”
The CIC also noted that fairness in institutions is not “an inevitable byproduct of control” but depends on “transparency, accountability and careful calibration of regulatory mechanisms in a given field.”
The ruling effectively nullifies the practical effect of the 2018 CIC order passed by the then Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu, which directed the BCCI to appoint public information officers and establish an RTI compliance mechanism. It was this order that the BCCI objected to in the Madras High Court, which remanded the matter to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for a fresh decision in view of the Supreme Court’s 2016 judgment in the BCCI case.
