The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the sports ministry whether the 2011 National Sports Code was being adhered by National Sports Federations (NSFs) and when the ministry would notify the revised 2017 sports code.

A day after Supreme Court had said the high court should dispose of the petition filed by sports activist and lawyer Rahul Mehra in 2010, the ministry said before the bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Nazmi Waziri that it is yet to take any decision on granting recognition to the NSF’s.

On Thursday, the Apex Court had said the ministry need not seek the high court’s permission to give annual recognition to NSF’s but need to inform the court.

The high court also said, if tenure of office bearers of the NSF’s is over then those administrators can’t spend government grant and avail benefits given by the ministry. The next hearing is on November 7.

The court has directed all the parties including ministry and petitioner Mehra—to facilitate a convenience file having the main points—to address the issue (as the matter is running into 22 volumes and more than 7200 pages) so that the main petition of 2010 and other pending applications can be disposed off expeditiously.

The court has given four weeks of time to all the parties to compress the main arguments in small volumes as it would be difficult to go through huge number of pages.

Age and tenure of the key office bearers of the NSF’s were one of the aspects of the original petition. The sports administrators like Vijay Kumar Malhotra were holding the post of president of Archery Association of India (AAI) for four long decades.

Elections of the office bearers of NSF’s and its process were in violation of sports code were other issues highlighted by Mehra in his petition. ‘’Had addressed the issue of sports code for the promotion of sports in the country and the ministry should support it,’’ Mehra said. ‘’The ministry isn’t adhering to its own policy of 2011 sports code for transparency and good governance when granting annual recognition to the NSF’s gives the impression it is not keen to cleanse the existing system.

Mehra in his August 7, 258-page affidavit to court, had mentioned long list of violators of sports code committed by NSF’s as per their own constitution. The ministry however, has no responded how many NSF’s have violated the sports code.

‘’There should be scrutiny and some accountability as the ministry is giving financial assistance to NSF’s to run its office,’’ Mehra added.