Legal opinion sought on corrupt officials

With the arrest of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi, the Sports Ministry will now seek the Law Ministry’s opinion on whether the government can remove tainted sports officials. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 26, 2011, 01:02:38 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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With the arrest of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi, the Sports Ministry will now seek the Law Ministry’s opinion on whether the government can remove tainted sports officials.

The ministry, on Monday, suggested that the IOA appoint an ‘alternate’ president but was not sure whether the association will pay heed to it, as national sporting associations have autonomy in appointment of office-bearers.

“To maintain the fair image of sports in India, the government would like the IOA to consider appointing an alternate president in place of the present incumbent for managing the affairs of the IOA,” the ministry said in a letter to IOA secretary general Randhir Singh.

The ministry said Kalmadi has been arrested on charges of forgery, cheating and theft and his continuation, as head of the premier sports body, will dent India’s international image.

Sports minister Ajay Maken added that for a person who is in jail or has been chargesheeted, it would not be in national interest for him to represent the country anymore.

Despite Maken’s suggestion to the IOA, the ministry believes that the national sports body will not heed it. There is no provision under which the ministry can direct national sports federations to sack an office-bearer, even on charges of corruption.

However, the ministry has proposed such a provision in the draft sports regulation, which is expected to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament. Maken said a consultation with national sports bodies would be held in Delhi on May 2 to firm up the proposed legislation.

As an alternative, Maken has decided to seek legal opinion from the Law Ministry on whether it can direct IOA to sack Kalmadi and others chargesheeted officials. The ministry is confident of getting a positive response, as courts have upheld the ministry’s guidelines to sports federations on fixing age and tenure limit on the ground that they represent the country in the international arena.

Kalmadi’s close aides — former Organising Committee secretary general Lalit Bhanot and former Commonwealth Games director general VK Verma — were arrested in February.

They are yet to be removed from their respective national sports bodies. “We would also be writing to the Attorney General, seeking his legal advice. The government can also take action on its own, if the IOA fails to take any action against him. If required, we will take action on our own,” Maken said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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