Clubs do not have voting rights in Equestrian Federation of India governance: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court has ruled that clubs affiliated with the Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) do not have voting rights in the federation’s governance, reinforcing the primacy of state associations and dealing a setback to club-based voting structures that had operated under ministerial exemptions.

Dismissing a set of appeals filed by a Chandigarh-based riding club and connected parties, a division bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar upheld that the participation of clubs and institutional members in EFI elections was contrary to the Sports Code, which prescribes a pyramidal governance structure for national sports federations. The court, in its order on December 23, noted that Clauses 3.9 and 3.10 of the Sports Code explicitly reserve voting rights in a national federation’s electoral college for affiliated State Associations (SAs) and Union Territory Associations (UTAs), and not for clubs or individual members.

“In the scheme of the Sports Code, a club does not possess any statutory or legal entitlement to participate in or influence the governance of a National Sports Federation,” the bench observed, adding that allowing clubs to vote would dilute the representative structure envisaged under the Code. The ruling comes against the backdrop of a long-running dispute over the governance of EFI, which has been under judicial scrutiny for several years over its electoral processes, membership composition and compliance with the Sports Code.

EFI, recognised as the national federation for equestrian sport since 1967, has allowed clubs, individuals and institutional units-including several affiliated with the Indian Army-to become members with voting rights. This structure has been questioned by State associations, which argued that it enabled a handful of clubs and institutions to exercise disproportionate control over the federation.

In 2017, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) had granted EFI two years’ time to comply with the Sports Code, which requires a national federation to be built on a base of recognised State units, each backed by district associations. EFI, however, sought relaxations, citing the “peculiar nature” of equestrian sport, including high infrastructure costs, land requirements and the difficulty of creating district-level units across States.

In February 2021, the Sports Ministry amended the Sports Code to introduce a “Relaxation Clause”, empowering it to exempt federations from certain provisions to promote sports or remove implementation difficulties. Subsequently, in November 2021, the sports ministry had granted EFI temporary exemptions from key governance requirements, including those related to the composition of its electoral college.

These relaxations effectively allowed clubs and institutional members to continue exercising voting rights until the federation achieved the mandated spread of state and district units. However, the High Court noted that these exemptions lacked a substantive factual foundation and were inconsistent with the core principles of the Sports Code.

While the court upheld the validity of the relaxation clause itself, it found fault with the manner in which exemptions were granted to EFI, particularly as they related to electoral governance. The judgment further endorsed the appointment of a fact-finding committee to assess ground realities in equestrian sport, including the role played by clubs, but made it clear that such entities cannot claim voting rights under the existing legal framework.