Savvy Thakur
Published on: November 10, 2022 at 20:50 IST
The All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) plea to adopt a new constitution was heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The matter was heard by bench including CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices Hima Kohli, and JB Pardiwala.
The three issues referenced under the watchful eye of the court by the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta were-
a) Setting the Constitution of AIFF;
b) Establishing guidelines for forensic audits and;
c) Hearing the petition for contempt against four AIFF administrative members.
CJI Chandrachud made the amusing observation during the hearing, “With all this procedural wrangling, when do our players actually play football? Except for playing football, the federation is doing everything else. The World Cup is, thankfully, over.”
In light of this, one counsel claimed that the Indian football team’s performance had been subpar, and that the team had not even scored a goal.
“The fact that the performance was not of a higher-order is not really the point. When you introduce your children to a game, you will eventually have better facilities and training. Not at all like say hockey and cricket, which have truly been in that sense public games, football is a public game it could be said that we all have played it as children.”
“It is a well-liked sport. However, football has not achieved that level of success, and neither have we. Therefore, we will need to proceed with it. The federation’s constitution is nearing completion at this point.”
“A legitimately elected body will take action against all of the wrongdoings that are occurring. Therefore, responsible individuals will now act in the sport’s best interest,” CJI Chandrachud stated in this instance.
As a result, the bench issued an order directing the amicus curiae to compile the received objections to the AIFF constitution in order to finalize the document.
The court likewise coordinated the report of the legal review to be set under the watchful eye of the court ace and coursed to the seat.
Counsel for AIFF, Senior Advocate Raju Ramchandran, stated that it would be appropriate to entrust the petition to amicus because it was filed against four AIFF administrative members.
In the contempt petition, the bench concurred and issued a returnable notice after two weeks.
It required parties to submit suggestions for the draft constitution to the Amicus Curiae by Friday, November 11, 2022.
Following the FIFA suspension of the national football body, the supreme court had previously revoked the Committee of Administrators’ mandate and issued instructions for the AIFF’s election.