Sharad Pawar-led wrestling association to challenge dissolution before federation president

HC passed the order after WFI submitted that an alternate remedy of appeal before the president of WFI was available to MSWA

Mumbai The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra State Wrestling Association (MSWA) to file an appeal before the president of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), challenging the alleged “sudden dissolution” of MSWA’s elected committee led by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar.

The division bench of justice S V Gangapurwala and justice Madhav Jamdar, while hearing the petition filed by the MSWA through Vinayak Gadhye, an executive member of the dissolved executive committee, was informed by advocate Akshay Kapadia that it was seeking a stay on the declaration of names of persons elected to the executive committee till the petition was decided (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

HC passed the order after WFI submitted that an alternate remedy of appeal before the president of WFI was available to MSWA. HC has asked the MSWA to file the appeal within 10 days. The appellate authority has been ordered to make a decision within 30 days thereafter.

The division bench of justice S V Gangapurwala and justice Madhav Jamdar, while hearing the petition filed by the MSWA through Vinayak Gadhye, an executive member of the dissolved executive committee, was informed by advocate Akshay Kapadia that it was seeking a stay on the declaration of names of persons elected to the executive committee till the petition was decided.

The petition filed on July 22 had challenged the June 30 decision of the WFI which had decided to dissolve the executive committee which was headed by Pawar for almost 40 years. The WFI had dissolved the committee based on several complaints by district wrestling associations of misuse of MSWA funds by the general secretary of the association and failure to conduct scheduled wrestling tournaments.

The decision, the petition claimed, was arbitrary and hence should be set aside. On Wednesday, the bench was informed that though it had been assured by the counsel for WFI that the result of the election which was slated for July 30 would not be declared till the petition was decided, the name of BJP MP from Wardha Ramdas Tadas was declared as the president. This led to a contempt petition being filed against WFI and its president.

In an earlier hearing on July 29, advocate Ajinkya Udane for WFI had sought time to file an affidavit in response to the petition. However, on Wednesday, he informed the bench that the petitioners had the remedy to go before the appellate authority headed by WFI president Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, who is also an MP from Uttar Pradesh.

Udane submitted that as per the rules, grievances had to be addressed to the appellate authority and hence the first petition should be disposed of. He also assured the bench that names of the elected persons would not be disclosed till the appeal of the petitioners was heard by the appellate authority.

In light of these submissions and the willingness of the petitioners to approach the appellate authority and not press the contempt petition, the HC disposed of both the petitions and directed the appeal to be filed within 10 days and the appellate authority to decide the same within 30 days. The bench also directed that the names of the newly elected members to be declared 10 days after the appeal was decided.