NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court took cognisance of amicus curiae Gopal Shankaranarayanan’s application collating corruption charges flying thick and fast against the interim governing body of All India Football Federation (AIFF) and said it would soon finalise its constitution to pave way for fresh elections for office bearers.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the amicus’ application bringing to court’s notice a series of corruption charges against the AIFF.
The amicus said, “The current management of AIFF, despite being an interim body, has gone well beyond their mandate and recent developments highlighting the serious mismanagement taking place in AIFF has come to light. The AIFF corpus is being frittered away,” Shankaranarayanan told the bench.
To buttress its stand, he cited a TOI report, “AIFF terminates services of its legal head after he accused president Kalyan Chaubey of corruption”, and also other reports about India giving up hosting bid for 2027 AFC Asia Cup despite incurring a pre-bid expense of Rs 72 lakh, commercially skewed agreement between Indigo and AIFF, as well as irregular personal expenses incurred by Chaubey.
Appearing for AIFF, senior advocate Atmaram S Nadkarni said the football body will respond to each charge within a week. However, the bench was of the opinion that it would be prudent to simultaneously finalise the draft constitution prepared by former SC judge L Nageswara Rao.
Nadkarni said AIFF would file its objections to the draft constitution and the court permitted it.
CJI Chandrachud said once the AIFF constitution is finalised, fresh elections will be held to elect office bearers and the interim elected management body will step down.
“We cannot keep the issue alive forever here in the court,” the bench said.
The bench said it would not permit state bodies to file their objections afresh but agreed to hear Guruswamy during the proceedings for finalisation of the AIFF constitution.
