SC judge recuses from hearing plea on equestrian team selection

Supreme Court judge KV Viswanathan on Thursday recused himself from hearing a plea challenging the Delhi High Court’s refusal to interfere with the non-selection of riders Anush Agarwalla and Sudipti Hajela in India’s dressage team for the upcoming Asian Games in Japan.

When the matter was called for the hearing, Justice Viswanathan said he would recuse from hearing.

The bench, also comprising Justice Alok Aradhe, said now the matter will be listed for hearing before another appropriate bench under the direction of the Chief Justice of India. Subsequently, the plea was mentioned before a bench led by Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, the senior-most available judge. He allowed the listing of the case on Friday. On July 7, a bench said that the plea will be taken up for hearing on Thursday after the counsel submitted that the selection is scheduled to be held on July 15.

On July 6, the high court refused to interfere with the non-selection of Agarwalla and Hajela, upholding a previous ruling made by a single judge, which denied relief to the duo. Both riders are gold medal winners from the Asian Games 2022 and filed petitions against the selection decisions made by the Equestrian Federation of India (EFI). Dismissing the riders’ appeals, the high court had said that while it did not find any infirmity with the preparation of the list of probables, the EFI had failed to duly comply with certain clauses of the selection criteria. It, however, was of the opinion that a fresh trial was not possible at this stage and exercised “restraint” in the larger interest of sports and to avoid any adverse impact on the country’s prospects at the Asian Games.

“Having regard to the deadline of July 15, 2026, it is logistically impractical to conduct a further competition within the time frame available, particularly since the riders and horses are located at different places across the globe and transporting horses from different locations to a common venue for conducting a competition amongst all six probables would not be possible in such a short span of time,” the high court had said.

It added that, “We are constrained to refrain from interfering with the impugned judgement.”

The court nonetheless asked the EFI to strictly comply with the selection criteria.

On June 29, the single judge had upheld the EFI’s selection process for the Asian Games dressage team, dismissing petitions filed by Agarwalla and Hajela.

The single judge had held that the selection criteria were applied fairly and there was no arbitrariness, perversity or procedural impropriety warranting judicial interference.

Both riders had challenged the June 16 selection list issued by the EFI’s ad hoc committee for the dressage event at the Asian Games, where they were placed as reserve riders — Agarwalla as first reserve and Hajela as second reserve — while four riders were selected ahead of them.

The single judge, however, rejected all their challenges, including objections to the calculation of Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MERs), the interpretation of the selection criteria, the absence of additional selection trials and allegations of bias in the selection committee.

The Asian Games will be held from September 19 to October 4.