Somdev Devvarman, Purav Raja move Delhi High Court against AITA mismanagement, elections

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Central government and the All India Tennis Association (AITA) on a petition filed by Indian tennis players Somdev Devvarman and Purav Raja challenging the AITA elections scheduled for September 28.

The petitioners accused the AITA of violating the Sports Code and also alleged serious mismanagement.

It was claimed that the Union government failed to ensure AITA's compliance with the National Sports Code.

Single-judge Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav sought the response of Centre and AITA and also directed that the results of the elections would be subject to the outcome of the present plea.

The matter will be heard next on October 14.

As per the plea, the Union Ministry failed to take steps to verify whether the AITA complies with the Sports Code and ignored several blatant violations of the Sports Code by the AITA.

"It is pertinent to point out that amongst the 18 patent violations, the most significant violations are the lack of any seats for athletes in the Central Council / General Assembly of the AITA, lack of any mechanism for athletes to elect eminent sportspersons of outstanding merit to represent them in the Central Council / General Assembly, lack of reservation of seats for athletes in the Executive Committee and lack of any mechanism whereby athletes are elected from the Central Council / General Assembly to the Executive committee," the plea stated.

Hence, directions should be issued to the government to ensure that AITA complies with the Sports Code and the same should be a condition precedent for continued recognition of the body.

Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra along with Advocates Jhanvi Dubey, Arunadhri Iyer and Vaibhav Gulia appeared for the petitioners.