Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is also the WFI office, made a “request” of Sanjay Singh, the recently elected president of the organisation, asking him to hold the National Championships for the Under-15 and Under-20 categories before the end of the year, amid festivities and sloganeering on Thursday at his MP bungalow in New Delhi.
In a matter of minutes, Singh issued an order confirming the age-group competitions’ date and location, which would be in Brij Bhushan’s backyard of Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, from December 28 to 30.
Prem Chand Lochab, the WFI secretary-general who was elected last Thursday, informed the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) in a letter that Singh had made this decision without consulting him and that the Executive Committee meeting had been held without prior notice or quorum.
“The secretary-general was kept in the dark about this whereas he should have been the main person to be consulted. There is a process in place, which was violated. This happened within hours of the election, so the secretary-general flagged this to ensure it didn’t happen again,” a source said.
In his letter, Lochab—a member of the government apparatus and the secretary of the Railway Sports Promotion Board—drew attention to the procedural errors and the WFI’s constitutional infraction.
According to those with knowledge, the government suspended the committee because to the tournament’s hosting decision, which the Sports Ministry on Sunday referred to as “arbitrary” and “against the principles of good governance.” The previous WFI president, Brij Bhushan, was mentioned by a ministry official as saying that the results indicated that the “newly-elected body appeared to be in complete control of former office-bearers.”
The location where freshly elected WFI president and ardent supporter of Brij Bhushan, Sanjay Singh, made the decision and issued the notice was also seen by the authorities. “The business of the Federation is being run from the premises controlled by former office-bearers, which is also the alleged premises wherein sexual harassment of the players has been alleged and presently, the court is hearing the matter,” the ministry official said.
The ministry called attention to these violations while suspending the committee. The ministry official claimed, “This announcement is hasty, without giving wrestlers who are to participate in the said nationals sufficient notice, and without following the provisions of the WFI constitution.”
The official said, “The decisions made by the WFI’s newly-elected executive body exhibit a flagrant disregard for established legal and procedural norms, violating both the National Sports Development Code and the WFI’s constitutional provisions.”
