The Delhi High Court Tuesday said the representation of the Yoga Federation of India (YFI) challenging recognition of the National Yogasana Sports Federation (NYSF) for promotion of Yogasana in the country was rejected in a mechanical manner and asked the Centre to examine it afresh within two weeks.

Justice Rekha Palli also said that the Union Sports Ministry’s order rejecting YFI’s representation did not even consider any submissions raised before it.

“A perusal of the said order whereby the representation of the petitioner has been rejected shows that Respondent no 1 (Centre) has passed the order in a mechanical manner and has not dealt with any submissions made in the representation,” the court said.

Counsel for the Centre also conceded that the order made no reference to any grounds raised in the representation and sought time to pass a fresh order after dealing with the submissions.

“It is expected that a fresh order will be positively passed in two weeks (after considering the contentions raised in the representation), failing which the court will be constrained to take up the matter on merit,” said the court as it listed the petition by YFI against the recognition granted to the NYSF for hearing on October 21.

Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for YFI, urged the court to pass an order restraining any transfer of funds from the Centre to NYSF in the meantime and contended that the recognition was granted in violation of the Sports Code.

In April, the court had given 45 days to the Sports Ministry to decide YFI’s representation challenging the recognition granted on November 27 last year to NYSF. In the plea, YFI has challenged the recognition granted to NYSF on the ground that it was done on the recommendation of the AYUSH Ministry and therefore, was contrary to the sports code.

It said that YFI was aggrieved by the authorities’ inaction with regard to recognizing Yogasana as a sports discipline and YFI as National Sports Federation (NSF) to date. The plea said that YFI was established in 1974 and has won many laurels for the country.

“It is relevant to mention here that the NYSF was registered in the financial year 2020-2021 and have no audit report of last three financial years and as per national sports development code, there must be two-third affiliated state units of the national body, and NYSF doesn’t have experiences as per the rules and also doesn’t have any details with regard to sub-junior and senior-level National Yogasana Sports competition,” it said.

The plea has said that the NYSF does not have the district level units and the petitioner has completed all the criteria and rules and regulations of the National Sports Development Code of India (Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports Department of Sports).