NEW DELHI: A courtroom battle over selection matters has threatened to take the sheen away from the upcoming IBA women's World Championships, which India will be hosting for a historic third time – most ever by any country since the tournament's inception in 2001.
As had been threatened, three of the country's leading female boxers - all reigning national champions - Manju Rani (48kg), Shiksha Narwal (54kg) and Poonam Poonia (60kg), on Monday dragged the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) to the court over their non-inclusion in the 12-member Indian squad for the Worlds, scheduled to be held here from March 15-26.
Filing the writ petition in the Delhi High Court through their lead counsel Sandeep Lamba, the three boxers alleged that their non-selection has "revealed the malpractices and corruption in the system of the boxing federation".
The matter was listed before the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, who, after allowing the petition, listed it for an urgent hearing before a single-judge bench of Justice Pratibha M Singh in the Court No. 43 on Tuesday.
Apart from BFI (Respondent No. 1), the petitioners (Manju Rani & Others) have made the Sports Authority of India (Respondent No. 2), ministry of youth affairs and sports (Respondent No. 3), the selected three boxers for the Worlds - Nitu Ghanghas (48kg), Preeti (54kg) and Jaismine Lamboria (60kg) Respondents No. 4 to 6 - and women team's head coach Bhaskar Chandra Bhatt (Respondent No. 7), party to the matter.
In their petition, the boxers have prayed "to pass an ex-parte ad-Interim order or direction in the form of mandamus or any other nature by directing the Respondent No.1 to 3 to not take any further step till the disposal of this writ petition by this hon'ble court and pass any appropriate order for considering the candidature of the petitioners in their respective weight category for the World Championship; direct the Respondent No. 1 to 3 to maintain the status quo, for considering the candidature of the petitioners in their respective weight category; and to pass an order to constitute an independent committee to conduct fair investigation to the selection procedure and to file the proper report before this hon'ble court after due investigation".
TOI reached out to BFI office-bearers but calls seeking their response went unanswered.
In their petition, the boxers alleged that "the Respondent No. 1 to 3 have shown their ill will and all kind of malpractices which are in the process of selection and it has caused a great harm to the image of sports in India and it has also caused a great disbelief in the people of this nation regarding the federations that do the selection processes and are in charge of representing India on the world level".
After the trio were left out of the Indian team for the Worlds, they had questioned the BFI's selection policy which was envisaged in consultation with the boxing's high-performance director (HPD) Bernard Dunne and the other Indian coaches, where the squad was selected based on the boxers' performance at a nearly three-week long national camp at NIS Patiala between January 20 and February 8. The federation has maintained that winning the Nationals wasn't the sole criteria to pick the team.
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