The Supreme Court of India has cleared the path for the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) elections by setting aside the stay previously imposed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. This decision marks a significant turn in the ongoing legal tussle surrounding the governance of the wrestling body.
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A bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and Pankaj Mithal presided over the matter. They expressed their inability to comprehend the High Court’s rationale in halting the entire election process. The Supreme Court bench stated,
“We fail to understand how the entire process of the election could have been set at naught by the High Court. The proper course would have been to allow the election to be conducted and make the election subject to the outcome of the pending writ petition.”
The apex court’s decision effectively overturns the interim order granted by the High Court, which had provided temporary relief by staying the elections. The Supreme Court directed,
“Accordingly, the impugned order granting interim relief is set aside. It will be open for the Returning Officer to proceed with the election by publishing a revised election program.”
This ruling came after the counsel representing the Haryana Wrestling Association raised allegations of forgery against the Haryana Amateur Wrestling Association (HAWA). The counsel claimed,
“We say I am the real body. Respondent 5 herein (HAWA) produces a forged letter from the Haryana Olympic Association. On the basis of that forged my objection before the returning officer was rejected, and he was made part of the Electoral College. Now, the order of RO is based on the forged letter, I challenged before the high court.”
The Supreme Court’s intervention allows the WFI elections to proceed, albeit with the outcome remaining subject to the final orders of the pending writ petition in the High Court. This development follows a series of legal challenges and stays, including an earlier decision by the Supreme Court not to interfere with the High Court’s order staying the WFI elections. The controversy had escalated after United World Wrestling, the global governing body for the sport, suspended WFI for not conducting its elections on time.
The Indian Olympic Association-appointed ad-hoc panel governing the WFI had initially scheduled the elections for July 6 but faced multiple legal hurdles, including stays from the Gauhati High Court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Supreme Court’s latest ruling paves the way for a resolution in the governance of the Wrestling Federation of India, a crucial step for the sport’s administration in the country.
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