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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court on Saturday last week 'refused to interfere with the exemption' granted to wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia from the Asian Games trials while dismissing a petition by wrestlers Antim Panghal and Sujeet Kalkal against wrestlers' direct entry into the Indian squad for the tournament.

Justice Subramonium Prasad said that although the petitioners themselves had also “excelled” in the field of wrestling, the court was not inclined to sit in appeal over the decision taken by an expert committee which unanimously decided that being “elite athletes”, Phogat and Punia should be exempted from trials in order to prevent injury to them.

The court said that the unanimous decision taken by the committee on July 12 not to expose Punia and Phogat, who have been termed as elite athletes, to injuries during trials cannot be said to be arbitrary or perverse.

"It is nobody’s case that Respondent No.3 & 4 are not well known in their respective categories. In fact, both the athletes are in the World Top 10 rankings and, therefore, the categorisation of these athletes as elite athletes also cannot be said to be perverse or arbitrary", the court added.

"The Asian Games are to begin in about two months’ time and in case injury is caused to the elite athletes, who are medal probables, the time for recovery is extremely low and, therefore, the decision taken by the Committee to exempt Respondents No.3 & 4 (Punia and Phogat) from selection trials in order to ensure that they are not to exposed to injuries during trials cannot be said to be arbitrary or capricious or perverse", the judge said.

The court also noted that WFI had filed an affidavit dated July 21 categorically stating that the Minutes of Meeting dated August 25, 2022 along with the cover letter dated September 7, 2022 were not available in the records of the WFI as available with the Ad-hoc Committee of WFI and that the "documents were disputed documents".

The court also noted that a similar decision was taken on August 27, 2022, wherein exemption was granted to Respondent No.3 (Punia) from undergoing selection trials for his participation in the World Wrestling Championship and he came back with a medal for the country. "It is neither the contention of the Petitioners nor can it be said that the WFI has acted against the interest of the country or that the decision has been taken because of certain extraneous circumstances or in order to favour anyone", it added.

“Writ petition is dismissed,” the judge ordered.

Notably, on Friday the single-judge bench had "reserved orders" in the plea. While reserving the order, the court had asked the ad-hoc panel running the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) to file an affidavit by evening that day that there was no record of a withdrawal of exemptions in a meeting on August 25, 2020.

Court had said that he will not deal with the issue of who is a better wrestler. "We will only see if the procedure has been followed or not", the judge had added.

On Thursday the court had sought response of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) in the plea by the wrestlers. 

The petition, moved through Advocate Hrishikesh Baruah and Akshay Kumar contended that the directive issued by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) ad-hoc committee with regards to the two categories (men’s freestyle 65kg and women’s 53kg) be quashed and the exemption granted to Bajrang and Vinesh be set aside.

The plea contended that the trials should be held in a "fair manner", without granting any exemption to any wrestler and the "whole process be videographed".

Case Title: Sujeet & Anr. v. Union of India and Ors.