A Division Bench of the High Court of Delhi has ruled that clubs have no statutory or legal entitlement to interfere with, participate in or seek to influence the governance and administration of the (Equestrian) Sport at the National level.
The Court not only agreed with the Rajasthan Equestrian Association’s contention challenging the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports decision to grant EFI exemption from a couple of critical provisions of the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, but also went a step further in reiterating that clubs should have no say in the governance of the Federation.
Finding that the two Letter Patent Appeals by Chandigarh Horse Riders Society against Single Bench rulings lacked merit, the Division Bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar dismissed them both in a 28-page Judgement delivered on Tuesday. The Bench had concluded hearings and reserved Judgement on November 18.
“The Sports Code expressly reserve the right to cast a vote exclusively in favour of the State and Union Territories Associations recognised as members of the concerned NSF. The scheme embodied in the Sports Code thus delineates, in unequivocal terms, the category of entities that are empowered to participate in the decision-making process of an NSF,” the Judgment held.
“The regulatory intent of the Sports Code is to ensure that the collective voice of the recognised State and Union Territories Associations, being representative bodies with defined responsibilities, is not diluted or undermined by entities that do not form part of the mandatory governance structure of an NSF,” it said.
From a reading of the judgement, it would appear that the attempts to justify the exemptions were made by Chandigarh Horse Riders Society rather than the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Similarly, the contention that the single judge bench had adjudicated on policy, which is the Ministry’s domain, was made by the club rather than the Ministry itself.
Chandigarh Horse Riders Society had preferred appeals against Justice Sanjeev Narula’s Judgement of January 7 ruling that the Ministry decision to grant EFI exemptions lacked substantiative factual foundation and appointing a fact-finding panel and against the August 13 order of Justice Sachin Dutta staying the convention of an Extraordinary General Meeting.
Rajasthan Equestrian Association Senior Counsel Rajiv Dutta, assisted by Ashish Kothari, questioned the locus of the Chandigarh Horse Riders Society. With EFI Senior Counsel Sudhir Nandrajog also saying that the club had wrongly projected itself as member, the Court agreed that the club’s membership was shrouded in doubt, but it focused on the merits of the case.
“The claims sought to be raised by the Appellant appear to be wholly misplaced. The Appellant, being associated merely as a club member, does not fall within the class of entities to whom the Sports Code accords participatory rights in the governance of an NSF,” the Division Bench held.
Significantly, the Bench also held that the sport’s capital-intensive nature and the lack of equine infrastructure should not have a bearing on matters of governance, specifically the composition of the Electoral College. The assertion that horses constitute ‘athletes’ stands negated by the Sports Code, which classifies horses as equipment.
The Division Bench also upheld Justice Sachin Dutta’s August 13 order to stay an Extraordinary General Meeting convened by the then suspended Secretary-General Col. Jaiveer Singh (retd.). “The Judge had correctly concluded that there is no rationale in permitting steps that may further complicate the already unsettled situation within the EFI,” it maintained.
The Judgement also noted that the sequence of events in the wake of the August 2 notice for the Extraordinary General Meeting reasonably supports the inference that clubs associated with Col. Jaiveer Singh issued these requisitions as an afterthought, evidently at his behest, to create an impression that the statutory requirement for convening the meeting had been satisfied.
“It emerges that none of the e-mails containing the requisitions placed on record by Col. Jaiveer Singh through his affidavit dated August 13, 2025, including the requisition attributed to the Appellant (Chandigarh Horse Riders Society), were sent prior to the uploading of the EOGM Notice on the EFI website,” the Court observed.
There was more damning observation of the Court in terms of the reduction of number of State Associations affiliated by the EFI. “It has also been found that now only 12 State Associations are registered with the EFI, as there has been a systematic effort of certain officers of the Indian Army and its units to take control over the affairs of the EFI,” the Judgement noted.
The Court ignored Chandigarh Horse Riders Society’s attempts to discredit the Fact Finding Committee, appointed by the Court in January last. “This Court is of the considered view that the fact-finding exercise must be carried to its logical culmination, as it forms an indispensable safeguard for ensuring transparency and fairness in the governance of Equestrian sport,” it said.
Quite naturally, the Rajasthan Equestrian Association President Raghuvendra Singh Dundlod was pleased with the outcome and hoped that the Judgement would pave the way for early elections to be held as per the provisions of the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011. “It is what we have been asking for since 2019 when we moved Court first,” he said.
