NEW DELHI: Fifty six of the 57 de-recognised National Sports Federations have submitted their replies to a questionnaire on their office-bearers’ age and tenure as sought by the Ministry with the Judo body being the only one to miss the August 13 deadline.
On June 24, the Delhi High Court had directed the sports ministry to revoke the recognition of 54 NSFs on a PIL filed by activist-lawyer Rahul Mehra. The ministry later de-recognised three more to take the total to 57.
Indian Olympic Association president Narinder Batra and secretary general Rajeev Mehta, in a joint statement, released the list of 56 NSFs which submitted the compliance report with regards to Mehra’s petition.
Mehra’s contention is that the process to grant provisional recognition was “in violation of sports code”.
“Replies received by MoYAS from 56 out of 57 provisionally recommended NSFs for recognition. The 1 NSF that did not reply till 10.30 am of 14th August is Judo,” the IOA statement read.
On June 24, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Najmi Waziri, which conducted an online hearing, said the ministry tried to “overreach” the order while granting provisional recognition without first approaching the court and seeking its consent.
The decision had back then come under the scanner of the High Court as on February 7, it had directed the IOA and the sports ministry to inform the court in advance while taking any decision in relation to the NSFs.
The provisional recognition was to last till September 30 of this year.
The high court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by Mehra in 2010 which initially sought a probe into the functioning of various sports bodies, including Hockey India and the IOA.