The Delhi Excessive Court docket on Monday sought responses of the Centre and the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on a petition filed by wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and her husband Satyawart Kadian for declaring as unlawful the December 2023 elections held by the sports activities physique and setting it apart. Justice Sachin Datta issued discover to the Central authorities, WFI and Advert-Hoc Committee of WFI on the petition. The courtroom granted time to the central authorities’s standing counsel Anil Soni to get directions within the matter and listed the plea for additional listening to on March 7.
The wrestlers, represented by senior advocate Rahul Mehra, had been on the forefront of final 12 months’s protest at Jantar Mantar right here demanding the arrest of former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for alleged sexual harassment of seven girls grapplers.
Senior advocate Dayan Krishnan represented the WFI.
The plea contended that the WFI elections, held on December 21, 2023, had been in blatant violation of Sports activities Code and sought a route to the federation to “stop and desist” from enterprise any exercise pertaining to the game of wrestling.
Sanjay Kumar Singh, a detailed affiliate of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, was elected as the brand new president of the WFI throughout the election.
“The petitioner prays the courtroom could also be happy to put aside and declare elections held by R2/WFI on December 21, 2023 as unlawful and void ab-initio because the identical has been held in blatant violation of the sports activities code,” the petition mentioned.
The petitioners have accused the WFI of a number of wrongdoing.
“The current writ petition is being filed by the petitioners inter alia assailing, difficult, and in search of instructions towards the unlawful motion of the suspended Wrestling Federation of India conducting choice trials for the Senior Asian Wrestling Championships 2024 and Asian Olympic Video games Qualifier Wrestling Event notified by its round dated February 26, 2024 towards the directives of the ad-hoc Committee for Wrestling Federation of India,” the petition mentioned.
“The petitioners want to place on file that aside from them, there are lots of different athletes/wrestlers who’re additionally dealing with comparable harassment owing to their upright/trustworthy stand towards respondent no. 2/WFI and its officers over the illegalities by respondent no.2 in collusion and below directions of respondent no. 2’s/WFI former President and member of Parliament from Kaiserganj constituency specifically Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
The petitioners have accused the WFI of making an attempt to silence and sideline them, impacting their prospects of collaborating in worldwide occasions.
“Each doable means have been deployed by respondent no. 2/WFI to muffle the voices of the protesting petitioners and deprive them from any future scope of participation on the worldwide degree no matter their advantage and competence,” it added.
The petitioners have sought a route to the ad-hoc committee to proceed caring for the day-to-day affairs and administration of the WFI or, within the various, appoint a retired Supreme Court docket choose as an administrator to take over the affairs and administration of the physique.
The petition claimed the WFI has been a “ordinary offender” because it has intentionally flouted instructions handed by the Sports activities Ministry and the ad-hoc committee on a number of events, adversely affecting the profession prospects of Indian wrestlers.
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