The Delhi High Court today refused to tinker with the list of selected wrestlers for the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow but asked the Centre to ensure adherence of the National Sports Code in future selections of athletes and supporting staff by sports bodies.
"This court would like to remind the Ministry of Sports not to abdicate its responsibility from ensuring the guidelines dated September 18, 2008, are followed in letter and spirit," Justice V Kameswar Rao said.
"I do not think, it is case where this court at this stage should grant the relief sought for by the petitioners in the writ petitions. This court also would not like to interfere with the list already sent by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) to the Commonwealth Games Committee," the court said.
It came down on the Union Sports ministry, which authored the National Sports Code, for not ensuring the adherence of its own code by the WFI.
"Regrettably, I note the author of the Code, the ministry of sports has abdicated its responsibility to ensure the compliance of the National Sports Code (NSC) by WFI," it said.
Three petitions were filed by five wrestlers including Amit Kumar Dhankar, Joginder Kumar, Rahul Aware, Mausam Khatri and Rajneesh Dalal challenging the inaction of a National Sports Federation (NSF), WFI for not selecting wrestling team for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in accordance with the NSC.
Disposing of the pleas, the bench said, "This court justifies the filing of the writ petitions by the petitioners for a just cause, seeking implementation of the Code as formulated by Centre and considers it to be a fit case, where the petitioners must be compensated by granting cost. I quantify the cost Rs 25,000 to be given to each of the petitioners by the WFI."
The wrestlers had also sought holding of trials for selecting wrestlers for the upcoming CW Games as well as suspension of WFI for not following the sports code.
