NEW DELHI: Acting upon the sports ministry’s request, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Wednesday formed a three-member ad-hoc committee to manage the day-today affairs of the suspended Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), which was found guilty of ‘blatantly disregarding the procedural norms’ and ‘appearing to be in complete control of former office-bearers’ following its controversial elections.
IOA president PT Usha named a three-member panel, which will be headed by Wushu Association of India chief Bhupinder Singh Bajwa as its chairman with hockey Olympian MM Somaya and former international badminton player Manjusha Kanwar as its other two members.
This is the second time that the wrestling body has been placed under an ad-hoc body’s rule.
Earlier, when it was suspended by the ministry eight months ago after declaring as ‘null and void’ the WFI’s call to hold elections to its new executive committee (EC) on May 7, the IOA had formed a panel with Bajwa and national coach for rifle shooting, Suma Shirur, as its members.
The panel had handed over the work to the newly-elected WFI’s EC, with former federation head Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s loyalist Sanjay Singh as its president on December 21. But, after the ministry suspended the federation three days later for not following the provisions of the national sports code and its own constitution, the IOA was asked to step in and form another an ad-hoc committee “to oversee and supervise WFI’s operations, which include athlete selection, submitting entries for athletes to participate in international events, organising sports activities, handling bank accounts, managing the website and other responsibilities”.
The IOA said in a release that the newly-elected president and officials of the WFI have made arbitrary decisions in violation of their own constitutional provisions and also flouted principles of good governance.
It’s been learnt that the ad-hoc committee has decided to hold the senior Nationals in men’s and women’s freestyle and greco-roman in Jaipur from January 2 to 5.
