CHENNAI: The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) election has been ‘paused’ because of two conflicting High Court orders. In his order dated March 21, returning officer (RO) RK Gauba said that "the process is paused till BFI informs the undersigned of the action taken in the wake of the court orders".
The RO took the decision after BFI president Ajay Singh had written to him saying that they would approach the superior courts because of conflicting orders. The RO order says that the BFI president wrote: "(s)ince these orders have the potential to disrupt the ongoing electoral process/schedule, we are taking steps to approach the superior courts for urgent intervention. Therefore, it is requested that further orders be awaited before the conflicting orders of the high courts are acted upon" and further that "(w)e undertake that we will keep you informed and updated about the further orders of the courts".
The Delhi High Court and the Himachal Pradesh High Court had given two orders pertaining to exclusion of candidates because of BFI president's letter of March 7 that led to the rejection of one name from Himachal Pradesh Boxing Association and two names from the Delhi boxing unit. Both the courts ruled that the March 7 letter was not fair and did not follow model election guidelines of National Sports Development of India (2011).
This is interesting in the backdrop of both court orders directing the BFI not to stop the election process. However, the HP HC had said that HP boxing unit's nominee Anurag Thakur’s name must be included in the electoral college. The HC court also said: "It is further directed that respondents shall extend the last date of submission of nomination, to enable Mr. Anurag Singh Thakur to file his nomination and he be permitted to represent the petitioner-Association in the Annual general Meeting and fully participate therein, as per the Memorandum of respondent No. 3, including but not limited to the contest for any post for Boxing federation of India".
The RO, however, found that the HP and Delhi HC orders would lead to some steps to be taken by the BFI under its rules and regulations and model election guidelines.
"This necessitates certain steps to be taken by BFI under the R&Rs and the Model Election Code. Having regard to the fact that the Model Election Code prescribes the time-lines for the election process, it is rendered practically impossible, with above mandated additions to the Electoral College List, for the electoral process to be continued and completed under the extant Schedule," said the RO.
Interestingly, the timeline for the elections had been designed in such a way that the entire process of finalising names for the electoral college and submission of candidates for elections was followed by extended weekend holidays due to Holi. The RO listened to both the aggrieved parties on March 12 and 13 and relied on the BFI president's electoral college list that did not have the name of former sports minister Thakur, who was planning to contest for the president's post.
With this, another sports federation is heading towards a stalemate.
