NEW DELHI: The bitter fight among the Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) members to decide the rightful president of the national Olympic committee (NOC) is becoming uglier with each passing day.
On one hand is the IOA’s senior vice-president Anil Khanna, who claims to have been appointed as the Olympic body’s head by the Delhi High Court, and on the other is the Athletics Federation of India’s (AFI) boss and one of the nine vice-presidents of the IOA, Adille J Sumariwalla, who asserts to have been enjoying the support of 18 out of 31 executive council (EC) members of the NOC, who have pledged their support to his presidentship.
In the midst of this drama, which has become part and parcel of the IOA’s factional infighting since the removal of its former chief Narinder Dhruv Batra on May 25, the Khanna camp has once again knocked on the doors of the high court with a plea to initiate contempt proceedings against Sumariwalla for defying an earlier court order, which had installed Khanna as IOA’s president till the time an IOA executive committee — with a new set of elected office-bearers — takes charge.
Khanna, through his lawyers Ruchir Mishra and Hemant Phalphar, has petitioned the high court alleging that respondents Sumariwalla and others have acted in defiance and contempt of court order dated June 24, which had directed the applicant (Khanna) to continue discharging the duties and functions as the IOA chief after the removal of Batra.
“It’s humble submission of the petitioner that contemptuous actions of the respondents not only undermine the authority and majesty of this Hon’ble Court and cause interference in the administration of justice, but the said contemptuous actions have been designed to frustrate 36th National Games (sic), which, if not restrained, shall malign the institution and the country,” the petition read.
