A three-member Committee of Administrators, headed by retired Delhi High Court chief justice Gita Mittal, will run table tennis in India following the suspension of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) executive committee. This is part of the court's ruling on Manika Batra's petition.
The Committee also includes senior advocate Chetan Mittal and former athlete SD Mudgil.
The ruling of Justice Rekha Palli on Friday was based on the report of a three-member committee set up by her last November to investigate Batra's allegations.
The report is damning. It "reveals a very sorry state of affairs", Palli's order said. "The manner in which the (TTFI) is functioning is not what is expected from a National Sports Federation," Palli wrote in her order. "In fact, some of the observations made by the Committee clearly supports (Batra's) plea that the TTFI, instead of promoting the interest of the players, has been taking all possible steps to shelter its own officials."
We look at what that makes this a landmark ruling and what its possible implications are:
What did the court observe in the case?
TTFI, according to the enquiry committee report, attempted to "harass and intimidate" Manika, the country's highest ranked female table tennis player. The court said it "shudders to think how more vulnerable players are treated by the federation."
Soumyadeep Roy serving both as national coach and running a private academy "prima facie amounts to conflict of interest". Coming down hard on the TTFI's defense that it is a common practice in other sports too, the court said it hopes this will serve as a "wake up call for the government and all other sports federations to take corrective action".
"A person appointed as a national coach by a federation cannot and ought not to be not permitted to simultaneously run his personal academy. A conflict of this nature has to be avoided; our sportspersons surely deserve better," the order said.
TTFI "overreached" by approaching the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) for conducting an enquiry against Manika on fixing charges. The federation made this request to the world body within one hour of the court's September 23 order which directed the body to look into the player's complaint.
What are its directions?
Until "a deeper scrutiny" of the TTFI's affairs is carried out by the Centre or an independent committee, not just the executive committee members, none of the office-bearers of the federation will be entitled to discharge their functions. All communications with any athlete or international bodies on behalf of TTFI, will now only take place through the Committee of Administrators.
Why is this ruling significant?
In the past, federations have been pulled up and decisions have gone against them, but almost never have they been asked to sit out, and their affairs handed over to an administrator acting on an athlete's plea. This is a first of its kind.
"It's never happened that an Indian athlete has gone up against a federation not to clarify or apologise but to say 'what I've done is correct, I stand my ground and I want justice' and the court has gone on to find merit in the claims. Manika's is quite a different stand from what athletes across sport usually take against their respective federations. The other athlete cases that I've been recently part of, like the Vinesh Phogat one, have been nothing like this," Vidushpat Singhania, member of Manika's legal team says.
Vinesh, the 2018 Asian Games champion was show-caused and temporarily suspended by the Wrestling Federation of India for alleged indiscipline at the Tokyo Games. The wrestler later apologised to WFI.
"We have to bear in mind that no athlete would want to take their federation to court without sufficient reason," Singhania says. "Manika's primary request was reasonable -- that she be allowed to participate in a particular tournament. Unlike in team sports where selection is more subjective, here there was no doubt that she was deserving to be included in the team but was kept out. I think the court could clearly see that."
Akshay Amritanshu, also a member of the 26 year-old's legal team notes that Manika was clear in not wanting to hurt Sutirtha Mukherjee, against whom she claimed Roy had asked to throw an Olympic qualifying match. "Both as a fellow player and the fact that Sutirtha herself was at no fault for what happened, Manika wanted to keep Sutirtha out of this as far as possible," Amritanshu says. "The intention was never to overthrow any administrator/s because ultimately Manika is just a sportsperson. The idea was to call attention to the fact that the system needs to be fixed."
What does it mean for TTFI?
Beyond doubt, it's a massive blow for the federation. Their powers stand suspended and they are no longer authorised to take any decisions. The court-appointed administrator will be authorised to sign cheques on TTFI's behalf and submit reports of financial expenses every two months. Following the ruling, TTFI members are likely to meet to decide on a recourse. The federation has the option of filing an appeal against the single-bench order to the Delhi High Court's Division Bench.
"If the courts are now going to run federations, it's hard to say where Indian sport is headed. That said, the court's decision has to be respected. Since this has never really happened before there's no telling how this is going to pan out in the long term," a former administrator said.
What about the world body?
The ITTF Integrity Unit has been examining the charges and evidence surrounding the match-fixing allegations. The TTFI had submitted documents to the panel last year which they claim contradict Manika's allegations. A copy of the Committee's report will now be sent to them and it remains to be seen what view the ITTF takes. If found guilty, the players and coaches in question could face suspension.
What does all of this mean for players and the tournaments ahead?
While the court has ruled that the administrator runs the affairs and oversees the conduct of domestic tournaments, players are understandably anxious over how this could affect them in a packed year. Among the federation's primary duties with regard to players is forwarding tournament entries to ITTF, which only they are authorized to carry out. Now the administrator is likely to take over the functions and on the court's direction, a member of the executive committee will be required to assist.
The immediate concern is the upcoming tournaments. The last date for member federations to send in their player entries for next month's WTT Contender events in Doha, for instance, is Monday, February 14. Since the Doha events overlapped with the National Championships, players and TTFI had been discussing the possibility of changing the dates for the domestic event. "Yes the entries are yet to be sent but now that we are not authorised to do so anymore so we will wait for the administrator's direction," TTFI secretary general Arun Banerjee said. The court order does not specify the duration of the suspension so it remains to be seen whether it runs until the major events like Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.
Former player and Olympian Neha Aggarwal says she's "disappointed" at how this saga between a player and federation has hogged conversation around Indian table tennis leading into a big year. "Frankly I think it's really sad how this has unfolded. We're not talking about performance at all. It's just devolved to a battle between a player and the federation. In a year like this, even though ours is an individual sport the players come together as a team. It's what made the difference in 2018. The federation, in my view, put in a lot of effort at the time to make sure things turned out the way they did," she says.
"There will be pressure to match and better upon those results. I'm not sure how long the current situation with the federation is going to last, I just hope we get out of it soon. At this point, I just feel terribly bad for our sport."
Any other instances of players taking federation to court and finishing on the winning side?
In 1989, six cricketers -- Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Kiran More, Dilip Vengsarkar, Kriss Srikkanth, Ravi Shastri and Arun Lal, took the BCCI to court for slapping them with bans for playing unofficial cricket in North America. Following a three-month battle, the Supreme Court reprimanded the board and directed it to opt for an out of court settlement. Later in its extraordinary working committee, the BCCI lifted its ban on all six players.
Athlete PU Chithra wasn't as lucky. She filed a writ petition in the Kerala HC in July 2017 after the Athletics Federation of India excluded her from the World Championships squad. The HC directed the Centre to ensure Chithra's participation, this while the deadline for competition entries had passed. However, acting on the court's orders AFI said it requested world athletics body, IAAF to include Chithra in the competition which the latter refused. Chithra later filed for contempt against AFI, little came off it though and the matter eventually died a quiet death.
Singhania believes this ruling could act both as a deterrent and an important precedent. "If an athlete's sole focus is to excel in a sport then I think officials across federations might now think twice before harassing him/her," he says. "The power equation between federation and athlete that's long been lopsided, has found some much-needed balance."
Background
Manika approached the Delhi High Court in September after being left out of the Asian Championships squad. The rationale TTFI offered for the non-inclusion was her skipping the mandatory pre-tournament national camp in Sonepat. In her plea, Manika alleged that the federation was carrying out selections in an unfair manner and accused national coach Roy of pressuring her to "fix a match in favor of his student" -- Sutirtha -- at the Olympic qualifiers in March last year.