The High Court of Delhi has issued notice to the erstwhile office bearers of the Basketball Federation of India for allegedly restraining former Karnataka High Court judge Justice P. Krishna Bhat from entering the office of BFI.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora directed the respondents to file their response by June 1 on a petition filed by Justice Bhat, seeking initiation of contempt of court proceedings against the erstwhile office bearers of BFI.
It further ruled that the order passed by the High Court on May 2 must be complied with.
On May 2 this year, the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav at the Delhi High Court had appointed Justice Bhat as the administrator of BFI and ordered him to hold fresh elections to the governing body of the federation.
Filed through Advocate Aman Hingorani, the petition stated that soon after the High Court order, Justice Bhat ordered the office bearers to submit before him all office documents, including the cheque books and bank passbooks.
He further directed the BFI office not to issue any cheque or take any decision without his clearance.
The petition further said that the banks were informed of this decision and directed to secure audited, detailed accounts of the past three years and place the same before Justice Bhat.
However, when Justice Bhat tried to enter the BFI office, he was restrained from doing so as the respondents had deployed heavy security and bouncers, who did not let anyone visit the office, alleged the petition.
It said the respondents have till date not provided the office records (including records pertaining to election disqualification of constituent members of BFI), account books, all cheque books, and other documents of BFI to the petitioner.
The plea further said that the petitioner had no access to BFI records or to all the bank accounts, which was required for the purpose of acting as Administrator.
It pointed out that this would also act as an obstacle for holding the elections in terms of the May 2 verdict.
Since the federation has not been able to issue certificates to the players, this was adversely affecting their careers, as well as severely impacting the working of BFI, noted the petition.
The Court ordered the respondents to cooperate with the court-appointed administrator and also issued notice to them on the contempt plea.
(Case title: The Administrator vs K Govindaraj)