Wrestlers move HC for WFI derecognition for not holding trials

Three wrestlers today moved the Delhi High Court seeking derecognition of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) alleging violation of sports code by not holding trials for selecting players for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The petition was mentioned before a vacation bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Sunita Gupta who agreed to hear the matter along with the plea of Asian Games silver medallist Amit Dhankar, who too has alleged that trials have not been held for shortlisting players for the games to be held from July 23 to August 3.
The latest petition by Joginder Kumar, Rahul Aware and Mausam Khatri, filed through advocate Rahul Mehra, sought directions to the Indian Olympic Association not to forward the name of any player who has been nominated without holding the selection trials.

They have submitted in their plea that the International Wrestling Federation has recently changed weight requirements for five of the seven categories in the sport.
"In view of the introduction of the new weight categories selection trials were even more imperative as wrestlers in a particular category would be competing against wrestlers who would have been in a different category in the erstwhile classification and as such past performance could not be used as a yardstick to replace selection trials in the instant case," their petition says.
They have also sought directions to WFI to hold selection trials for the forthcoming games.

In Dhankar's petition, the high court on June 16 had issued notice to the Centre and WFI and had directed the sports body to inform it on the next date whether any selection trials have been held in the 65 kg category in which Amit wishes to participate.