BCCI has primarily contended before the CIC that being a private, charitable, autonomous and non-statutory body it does qualify to be a 'public authority' as defined under section 2(h) of the Right to Information Act (RTI) and hence is not duty bound to disclose any information to any member of the public. Counsel for the BCCI also relied upon a judgment passed by the Honourable Supreme Court of India in case titled "Zee Telefilms versus Union of India and Others" wherein it was held in February 2005 that BCCI is not a "State" under Article 12 of the Constitution of India.
Another argument made by BCCI's counsel before the CIC is that BCCI is not recognized by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, (MYAS) Government of India as the NSF governing the game of cricket in India and hence cannot be equated with other NSF's who have sought such recognition. Finally, BCCI claimed that for any sports body to fall under RTI Act it must be substantially funded, directly or indirectly, by the state which is not the case as regards BCCI as it does not take any financial assistance from the Government of India. In a nut shell, it was argued that BCCI is a monopoly with complete autonomy without any accountability.
