The Delhi High Court has recently ordered that the five wrestlers be allowed to compete in the trials of Asian Championship, 2023 and shall be judged on their own merits.
This decision was made after observing that if they are not allowed to participate in the trials, irreparable prejudice would be caused to the petitioner wrestlers as they would in effect be excluded from competing in the Asian Championship 2023 as well as the Paris Olympics 2024.
A bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh was hearing a petition filed by five professional wrestlers namely, Anuj Kumar, Chander Mohan, Vijay, Ankit, and Sachin Mor, who were dissatisfied with the denial of their nomination for the Asian Championship 2023 trials.
According to the petitioner wrestlers, only those who compete in the Asian Championship 2023 would be allowed to represent India in the 2023 Senior World Championship, which also serves as an Olympic qualification.
It was further argued that their absence was unfair because the highest games staged in India were the National Games, from which medal winners were barred.
The Oversight Committee, appointed by the Centre to run the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and comprised of celebrated athletes such as M.C Mary Kom, Yogeshwar Dutt, and Babita Phogat, established the criteria for selecting wrestlers as medalists only in published international championships. The National Games of the Indian Olympic Association, on the other hand, were free from the aforementioned criteria.
The single-judge bench noted that the published criteria eliminated a substantial number of medal winners in national and international games and that the ’cause for exclusion was not clear at the current stage’.
The court opined that the petitioners were unquestionably medal winners in multiple national and international games and the goal of the trials was to guarantee that the greatest athletes compete in the championship.
“The exclusion of National Games conducted by the Indian Olympic Association on the one hand, and recognition of the 2022 Senior Nationals Championship on the other appears to have adversely affected by the petitioners,” the Court stated.
According to Justice Singh, “Given this position and the fact that talented wrestlers like the petitioners ought not to be excluded as there ought to be greater talent to compete in the trials, this Court is of the opinion that the Petitioners ought to be permitted to participate in the trials tomorrow, i.e., March 10, 2023, and on March 11, 2023, in their respective categories.
Nevertheless, the court made it clear that “this authorization to participate in the trials shall not be understood as an opinion of the Court of their inter se merit with other wrestlers, on which point the Selection Committee would take the decision.”
As a result, the court ordered the respondents to provide a short affidavit detailing the foundation of the Oversight Committee’s criteria, including the reason for the exclusion of National Games from the qualification criteria, and set the matter for further hearing on April 5, 2023.
