SC rules in favour of ESI act's applicability to the BCCI

Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah [PC: Twitter]

In a remarkable turn of events, the Supreme Court of India has ruled in favour of the Employees State Insurance (ESI) act's implementation in the BCCI. 

Terming BCCI as a commercial organisation, the court stated that it could serve the purposes of attracting the provisions of the ESI act.  

The apex court was dealing with the question of if the provisions of the ESI act shall apply to the BCCI or not, to which it concluded, 

"Considering the systematic activities being carried out by the BCCI namely, selling of tickets, rendering the services for a price, receiving the income from international tours and the IPL, the ESI court as well as the High Court, have rightly concluded that the BCCI is carrying out systematic economic commercial activities, and therefore, the BCCI can be said to be 'shop' for the purpose of attracting the provisions of ESI act."

Notably, the ESI act is an act to provide certain benefits to employees in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury and to make provisions for certain other matters in relation thereto. 

Earlier, the BCCI had challenged the Bombay High Court's call regarding this matter in the Supreme Court. So, the Supreme Court upholding the High Court's judgment can be considered a massive setback for the BCCI. 

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