High Court dismisses petition; Kumar to approach WFI before moving Supreme Court
Wrestler Sushil Kumar’s dream to make it big at the Rio Olympics crashed on Monday with the Delhi High Court refusing to direct the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) to hold selection trials for enabling Kumar to represent India in the 74 kg freestyle category event at the big ticket event.
Justice Manmohan ruled that though Sushil Kumar is an exemplary wrestler, but WFI’s contention that Narsingh Pancham Yadav is better in 74 kg category cannot be termed as “unreasonable” and the boxing body cannot be held wrong for selecting Narsingh for 2016 Rio Olympics. The Court was hearing a petition filed by Kumar.
The HC in its 37-page judgment said, “Just because Kumar was sent to Georgia and Sonepat for training in 2016 does not mean there should be a trial”. Sushil Kumar had argued that he was being trained by the WFI on tax-payers’ money, giving him an impression that he is to land a berth in the Rio Olympics.
The court added that the WFI had conducted a fair selection for the wrestlers and transparent process and hence refused to go into the merits of that decision.
Since the Olympics is due to begin in August, the judge was of the opinion that in the name of allowing a selection trial will jeopardize India’s chances to win at the sporting event. It said, “In international arena of sports, medals are won not only by ‘brawn’ but also by ‘brain’. The last minute challenge to selection can disturb the mental preparation of the selected….In the duel asked for, the country will be the loser.”
The WFI had opposed Kumar’s plea saying the 26-year-old Narsingh was a better bet compared to Sushil, who had participated in 66 kg category earlier. The sporting body said that Yadav had secured a berth for this category at Rio by winning a bronze medal in world wrestling championship held last year. On the contrary, Sushil opted out of World Championship citing shoulder injury before WFI had conducted trials.
Meanwhile, High Court asked a top Wrestling Federation official why perjury proceedings should not by initiated against him for filing a false affidavit in a plea moved by grappler Sushil Kumar for a trial to decide who will represent the nation at Rio Olympics in 74 kg freestyle category.
Justice Manmohan was of the view that “action is called for” against Raj Singh, a senior Vice President the Wrestling Federation of India, for filing a false affidavit stating that trials had been held and conducted by him as head coach in 1996 to select a candidate to represent India in the 48 kg Greco-Roman class of wrestling for the Olympic games held in Atlanta.
The court issued notice to Singh and sought his response by July 29 after WFI contended before it that he was not the head coach of the Indian team in 1996 nor were any trials held by him for selecting a candidate to represent India in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
In recent development it was learned that Sushil Kumar will again approach the Wrestling Federation of India in his final quest for competing at the Rio Olympics before deciding on whether to challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court.
“We will try our best. We would be speaking to the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) once again and urge it to hold a selection trial. But if that doesn’t work, we may approach the Supreme Court, as Sushil is the best bet in 74kg category and he must get a chance to show that he is not only capable of going to the Olympics but also winning nothing less than a gold medal there,” a well-placed source close to Sushil said.
Sushil’s mentor and father-in-law Mahabali Satpal, meanwhile, said he was upset with the verdict as he felt that the former world champion was in the form of his life and he should not be denied a chance to at least get a trial.
“Right now Sushil is the fittest ever. He is in the form of his life. His current weight is 78kg and during the training sessions, he is regularly beating wrestlers not just in 74kg category but also in much higher divisions. He has recently beaten a national level wrestler in 120kg category,” Satpal said.
Going by norms in WFI guidelines, a quota belongs to the country and not to an individual wrestler, and former world champion Sushil pointed out that there should be a trial in 74kg category to decide who would go to Rio.
The 33-year-old, who had won bronze medal in Beijing Olympics and followed it up with silver in london Oly, had moved the court seeking directions to WFI to hold selection trials.
Sushil’s climbing up to 74kg weight category brought him in direct competition with Narsingh, who had represented India in this category in earlier Olympics.