In a surprise U-turn, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has granted an ‘interim recognition’ to the Indian Golf Union (IGU) within weeks of its decision not to give a fifth recognition and effectively withdrawing its annual recognition to the National Sports Federation administering golf in the country.
Just over five weeks earlier, the Ministry had effectively withdrawn recognition to IGU, it wrote to the IGU the second week of August, indicating that it had reconsidered the issue of renewal of annual recognition and decided to grant IGU interim recognition for 90 days from August 9. No reasons were specified for the review.
“The interim recognition is the last opportunity given to IGU to put in place duly elected governance and comply with NSDSC, 2011,” the Ministry’s letter to IGU said. “During the period of interim recognition IGU will not be entitled to any financial support directly or indirectly from the Government as was the condition during the last extension granted to IGU.”
Having decided to not send an observer to the Archery Association of India elections in Delhi (or Chandigarh), it seemed as if the Ministry was tightening the screws on Federations. Union Minister Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju had Government would not be a mute spectator to mismanagement in any NSF.
But now, with the IGU getting an interim recognition and with no action being taken on the Equestrian Federation of India, it is being inferred that the Ministry has been using different yardsticks to assess the functioning of NSFs. Its resolve to enforce NSDCI 2011 seems to have been diluted by such an approach.
In fact, when the Minister told Lok Sabha on July 4 that the Ministry follows a system of annual recognition for NSFs which comply with the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, he had not included IGU as part of the list of 56 NSFs that had been given such recognition by the Ministry.
It is not known what the IGU officials did in the intervening month to get the Ministry to change its mind. Perhaps the IGU President Lt Gen Devraj Anbu met the top guns in the Ministry and sought a grace period. It is clear that IGU officials managed to convince the officials in the Ministry to join them in breach of the National Sports Code.
“The NSF shall forego the right to regulate and control the sport in India and select the National teams and represent India in international sports events and forums. It will also become ineligible to use India in its name or receive any benefit or concession meant for an NSF,” Annexure III of the National Sports Code specifies.
It is specified clearly that, upon withdrawal of recognition, an NSF will cease to exercise the functions of the NSF for the concerned sport discipline. By no stretch of imagination can it be construed that when a Federation does not get its annual recognition from the Ministry, it can to return the fold only after completing the fresh process of applying for recognition.
It may come across as splitting hair but once the IGU was not given extension of its interim recognition, and the Ministry’s recognition of the golf body stood withdrawn, it should have asked IGU to file a fresh application for recognition rather than grant it another extension. For, when the recognition was withdrawn, it meant IGU ceased to enjoy NSF status.
It remains to be seen what stand the Indian Olympic Association now takes. On July 12, it had decided to appoint a Golf Governance Committee under the chairmanship of Kavita Singh. This was in the wake of the Ministry’s decision to turn down IGU’s request to grant a fifth extension of the interim recognition. The IOA’s Golf Governance Committee has not been disbanded.
This article was first published in Mail Today on September 4, 2019.
