 to conduct elections of Executive Council (EC) of Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI)){kind=link}
Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Vineet Saran has been appointed as the Returning Officer (RO) to conduct elections to the Executive Council (EC) of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI).
The Delhi High Court took the decision after taking in view the observations made by a three-member inquiry committee, which was constituted through its previous orders, as well as the Committee of Administrators (CoA), stating that the federation’s affairs were not being conducted in consonance with the responsibilities entrusted on it.
Earlier, Justice Rekha Palli had directed completion of the election process, including voting and declaration of results, before November 15. She had further directed that none of the existing members of the TTFI’s EC would be eligible to participate in elections.
As per the order, Justice Saran will be paid Rs 7.5 lakh, besides secretarial expenses for his services.
The High Court passed the order on a petition filed by Table Tennis star Manika Batra, who alleged that she was coerced by national coach Soumyadeep Roy for fixing a match to enable a player undergoing personal coaching at his private academy to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
The petition further alleged that despite complaints to the federation, no action was taken against the coach and Batra was dropped from the national team for Asian Championship.
She further alleged that she has been continuously pressurised to take back the complaint and petition.
Batra was represented by Advocates Kirtiman Singh and Akshay Amritanshu.
The High Court observed in its order that closing the issue at a premature stage would be against the interest of the sport and sportspersons, especially in the context of their excellent performance in Table Tennis at the recent Commonwealth Games and other international events.
Fixing December 7 as the next date of hearing, the Bench noted that permitting the existing EC members to participate in the polls, while keeping in view the observations made by CoA that the Council was being run by only two or three persons, would not only be against the interest of the country, but would clearly demoralise the sportspersons.
Earlier in March 2022, the High Court had suspended the TTFI EC for six months, after finding that the national coach indulged in match-fixing during the Olympic qualifiers.
Senior Advocate Anupam Lal Das, along with Advocates Anirudh Singh, Krishanu Barua, Parth Goswami, Akshay Kumar and Abhijeet Kumar, appeared for TTFI.