CWG 2014: High Court reserves order on wrestlers' plea

The Delhi High Court Monday reserved its order on a plea filed by five wrestlers including Asian Championship silver medallist Amit Kumar Dhankar, seeking direction on the method of choosing wrestlers for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games (CWG).

After concluding the hearing on the plea filed by the five wrestlers, alleging that the men's wrestling squad for representing the nation in the CWG games was selected without holding any trials, a bench of Justice V. K. Rao reserved its order.

The five wrestlers -- Dhankar, Joginder Kumar, Rahul Aware, Mausam Khatri and Rajneesh Dalal -- claimed that holding of selection trials is mandatory as per the 2011 National Sports Development Code which WFI has not adhered to and also said that the central government did not ensure that the guidelines were implemented by the sports body.

However, the central government has admitted that the sports code is mandatory for national sports bodies like the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), but in the present case it could not clarify whether the guidelines have been adhered to as the government had from 2014 stopped appointing observers to look into the training camps conducted by the various sports bodies.

Meanwhile, the WFI has taken the stand that the sports code is not law and if the central government has not insisted upon its implementation it is up to the sports body concerned to decide whether or not to adhere to the guidelines.