In its 53-page judgement, the two-judge bench comprising Justice Ravindra Bhat and RK Gauba concluded on Monday that "the award (Puraskar) to the fifth respondent (Ramachandran) was finalised without a proper inquiry and proper application of mind, and no attempt to verify the claims of achievement of the fifth respondent was seriously made".
In a major embarrassment for the government, the Delhi High Court on Monday asked the sports ministry to take back the 'Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar' (RKPP) from the current Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president N Ramachandran for not fulfilling any of the 16 clauses needed to get this prestigious award.
In its 53-page judgement, the two-judge bench comprising Justice Ravindra Bhat and RK Gauba concluded on Monday that "the award (Puraskar) to the fifth respondent (Ramachandran) was finalised without a proper inquiry and proper application of mind, and no attempt to verify the claims of achievement of the fifth respondent was seriously made".
The judges observed that the manner in which the whole selection process took place, with respect to awarding the Puraskar to Ramachandran, not only revealed a casual and uncritical acceptance of whatever was offered by the applicant, but also exemplified what was wrong in such matters in Indian sports.
The petitioner's (Tatpal Singh Jaggi and others) challenge to the grant of the Puraskar in the category of 'Establishment and Management of sports academies of excellence' has to succeed and the respondents (Union of India and others) are hereby directed to pass consequential orders, revoking the grant of Puraskar to the fifth respondent, within four weeks from Monday. The said decision, based on the selection committee's recommendation, is therefore unsupportable in law," the bench said in its judgement.
It is important to know that Ramachandran is brother of former BCCI president N Srinivasan, who was asked by Supreme Court to stay away from the cricket board's top post after his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappen's name came in the Indian Premier League's spot-fixing in 2013.
Ramachandran is also the president of the World Squash Federation (WSF) and the Tamil Nadu Squash Rackets Association (TNSRA), and was honoured with the award in 2011 by the Union government for his "contribution to the growth and popularity of squash". The award was presented to Ramachandran by the then President of India, Pratibha Patil.
While pronouncing its judgement, the bench made some scathing observations over the way the composition of selection committee was changed in an "inexplicable manner" by the sports ministry and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) before awarding the Puraskar to Ramachandran, who was at that time the treasurer of the IOA.
"Rule 7.1 of the 2009 scheme provided for the composition of 15-member committee, which included sportsperson of eminence as chairperson, five (5) Olympians, four (4) Arjuna awardees among others administrators.
However, the 2011 scheme for the Puraskar, amended with effect from 01.03.2011, modified the composition and the 5 Olympians and 4 Arjuna Awardees were absent in the new committee. Further, the committee was no longer headed by an eminent sportsperson. In 2011, the award selection committee did not include any Olympian/Arjuna Awardee.
"The total removal of sportspersons from the selection committee is inexplicable. To compound this fallacy, the Scheme governing the Puraskar nowhere indicates any mechanism whereby feedback of such sportspersons, or at least users of the facilities or those engaged in the concerned sports, is made available and placed on the record. Sportspersons cannot be held to be irrelevant for the purposes of selecting the Puraskar awardees. This led to the easy manipulations," the bench said.
The judges concluded that the entire application nominating Ramachandran "paints a curious sight".
This is the second time in a span of less than a week that sports ministry has been found at fault by the Delhi HC. The first one was in wrestling coach Vinod Kumar's case last week in which his name was included in the list of Dronacharya awardees list.
The matter is still being pending in the Court.
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