New Delhi: The Sanjay Singh-led Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on Friday undertook before the Delhi high court to withdraw its September 24 circular for conducting selection trials for Indian Senior Wrestling Team for 2024 Senior World Wrestling Championship, during the day.
The undertaking was made after a bench of Justice Prateek Jalan reprimanded the WFI for issuing the circular despite the court passing an order of restoring the mandate of the ad hoc committee & granting it the authority to conduct selection of athletes.
On August 16, the high court had restored the mandate of an ad-hoc committee appointed by the International Olympic Association (IOA) to manage and control the affairs of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), saying that its dissolution was “unwarranted” and “incongruous”.
A bench of justice Sachin Datta opined that the disbandment of the ad hoc committee was incompatible with continuation of union sports ministry’s December 24, 2023 order and the same enjoyed ministry’s “tacit approval”, as the ministry neither expressed its reservation nor protested against the dissolution.
Taking note of the union sports ministry’s December 24 decision of continuing the suspension of the Sanjay Singh led WFI committee, the court said that the elected WFI committee had no jurisdiction to hold the selections and the same could only be conducted by the ad hoc committee.
“The elected committee of WFI has no jurisdiction to hold the selections & the ad hoc committee has to hold the selections. You can’t just take, like this in your own hands. There is an order of the court. But you cannot do. The orders of the court will not be trifled in this manner. The order of the court, you have a problem of it… it is open for you to… the order is clear as daylight,” justice Prateek Jalan said to the counsel who represented WFI.
The bench added, “He (counsel for the WFI) states that on instructions from Sanjay Singh that the circular will be withdrawn & the withdrawal will be communicated to all the recipients of the circular. No such circulars will be issued again. This order will not come in the way of the ad hoc committee to continue to hold selections. Contempt petition is disposed of.”
The WFI gave the undertaking in response to a contempt plea filed by wrestler Satyawart Kadian, contending that the Centre, WFI and the WFI ad hoc committee had failed to comply with the court’s August 16 order.
In his petition before the high court argued by senior advocate Rahul Mehra and advocate Chaitanya Gosain, Kadian had also sought for staying the selection trial for the Indian Senior Wrestling Team for the 2024 Senior World Wrestling Championship and directing the newly constituted body to conduct the trials to select the teams.
The plea claimed that the union sports ministry had neither complied with the directions in general nor set up the ad hoc committee in particular. “That the non-compliance by the Contemnor/ the Defendant has caused significant prejudice to the Petitioner and other wrestlers, who are at risk of being denied a fair, and transparent selection process for international competitions. The absence of the ad-hoc committee raises concerns about bias, favoritism, and lack of accountability in the decision-making process besides all the concerns raised and highlighted by UOI/MYAS which today continues to persist,” the plea added.