CHENNAI: The Indian Olympic Association mess has gone to the next level. After the email communication was suspended because of non-payment, it has come to light that the IOA president has issued show cause notices to at least five members of the Executive Committee.
It is understood that the IOA president had received complaints from an individual regarding sports code violation by a few members of the EC.
The letters signed by the IOA president, PT Usha, has been sent to the members for alleged sports code violation. Interestingly, as reported by this newspaper, since the emails are down, the letters have been spent through Speedpost. A couple of members said that they are yet to receive the letters.
However, one member claimed that all this is bogus and since the returning officer did not have any objection to their eligibility then there should not be any problem now. One dismissed the notice as frivolous. The members are holding top positions in the IOA.
The complaint received by the IOA president had raised issues regarding their 12-year tenure as office bearers in the National Sports Federations they served. It is to be noted that the August 2022 Delhi High Court judgement on IOA dated 16.08.2022 had said, "Age and tenure limits should be applied to all members of the EC of the IOA and not only to President, Secretary and Treasurer as well as to everyone in the General Assembly."
It needs to be seen how the whole saga pans out. One has to keep in mind that in order to qualify to be an IOA member one has to be eligible to be part of an NSF. And whether violation of the sports code in NSF will be seen as violation in IOA needs to be seen. In short, in order to have membership in the IOA one has to be compliant with the sports code. This will open another fierce debate among the executive committee and the president.