New Delhi (ILNS): The Delhi High Court will hear an interim application moved by Arjuna Awardee international swimmer Prasanta Karmakar, seeking immediate stay on his suspension. The hearing is tomorrow.
The petition has been filed through Karmakar’s advocates Amit Kumar Sharma and Satyam Singh Rajput, seeking direction to the Paralympics Committee of India to accept the entry of Karmakar for the IWAS World Games, 2020 so that he may achieve Minimum Qualification Standards (MQS), a prerequisite for participation of a swimmer in the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
Prasanta Karmakar is an Arjuna Awardee and the only Commonwealth and Asian Games medallist swimmer and the fastest para-swimmer in India. He has represented India as a swimming team coach for the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games and has been the national champion in his specific category for 16 consecutive years.
The plea further states that the PCI in the year 2018 has arbitrarily, unreasonably and capriciously suspended the petitioner with the mala fide intensions from participation and his bring sponsored in any sports events by PCI for a period of 3 years.
In 2018, the swimmer was banned after being accused of filming female swimmers during the country’s national championships the previous year. The swimmer-coach had allegedly had asked an associate to do the filming.
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It was alleged that he himself had been taking photographs of female swimmers with a camera on a tripod. He allegedly even had an argument with PCI officials and refused to delete the photographs.
-ILNS