As things stand, Indian gymnasts are likely to leave for Gold Coast only on April 2, two days prior to the start of the Commonwealth Games.
The kerfuffle over team selection took a fresh turn after two aggrieved gymnasts, Gaurav Kumar and Mohammad Bobby, who cried foul over not being picked for the Games, sought the Delhi High Court's intervention.
Both the Gymnastics Federation of India (GFI) and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) were served legal notices close to a week ago, and asked to respond as to why both gymnasts should not be part of the contingent.
On Monday, speaking to ESPN, a senior IOA official said that to save any further ignominy, the gymnastics team will have to push back its departure date from the originally scheduled March 30 till the Delhi High Court ruling on April 2. "It's the only way to avoid an embarrassment in case the court rules for a certain player or players to be replaced."
It also means that the gymnasts are likely to reach only on April 3, the day of podium training, a crucial safety drill. It's when gymnasts test out equipment and perform their routines on the elevated podium. The gymnastics competitions begin on April 5.
Of the ten-member Indian team, which includes a manager, two coaches and seven gymnasts, two are currently away training outside the country. While 2010 Commonwealth Games medalist Ashish Kumar is training in Australia, Aruna Reddy, who recently became India's first medalist at the gymnastics World Cup, is in Uzbekistan.
The IOA-backed selection committee had earlier picked a team which included Gaurav and Bobby but was pulled up by the world body FIG for not respecting the autonomy of the GFI in matters of selection. In response, GFI announced its own team, with two changes from among the names forwarded to them by the national federation. They included vault specialist Yogeshwar Singh and Rings and Parallel Bar specialist Rakesh Patra in the squad in place of Gaurav and Bobby, who were picked by the IOA panel on all-round criterion and do not possess the requisite FIG license ID needed to compete.
Patra, who finished fourth in the World Cup in Melbourne, had earlier also moved court after the team wasn't announced even three weeks after the February 12-14 trials.
"The team has been picked by GFI purely on the basis of medal potential," an official close to the development said. "Patra and Yogeshwar are specialised in individual apparatus and are experienced gymnasts. This is the best possible team. There is no court order directing the team to stay back until the ruling so it's not clear why the IOA is taking such a step which will only hamper the morale and preparation of gymnasts."