Delhi HC judgement against EFI presents Ministry with chance to set up oversight panel

It took a hurt teenager to bring the Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) officials down to earth. They have trapped themselves in a deceitful web of their own making. Their brazen game against young athletes stands exposed, laid bare by the Delhi High Court. They have nowhere to run, no place to hide. 

The Gurugram-based Chirag Khandal, who spent a good part of three month in Europe in 2022 trying to meet the criteria laid down by the EFI Selection Committee for the Asian Games, took EFI to Court after its officials changed the selection policy when the Asian Games was postponed by a year. 

EFI Secretary-General Col. Jaiveer Singh and Vice-President (Finance) Harish Khokhar tried a smokescreen called the Committee of Experts to lower the selection standards. They fired from the shoulders of the EFI Athletes Commission Chairman Vanita Malhotra, apparently getting her to suggest changes to facilitate picking of a chosen few, even if they were undeserving. 

These decisions boomeranged.

It is just as well that Justice Gaurang Kanth of the Delhi High Court noted that the Committee of Experts finds no mention either in the EFI Statutes or in the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011. He ruled that the so-called Expert Committee was only an eyewash to substitute a validly constituted Selection Committee.

In fact, Vanita Malhotra did a U-turn a day after it was reported that she had been used for such a purpose. In an e-mail to EFI, she said she interacted with a few athletes after the meeting of the Committee of Experts and, ‘to be fair to everyone’, she suggested that EFI could either stick to the original selection criteria or extend the date to obtain the Minimum Eligibility Requirements.

A caring Athlete Commission Chairman would have consulted her colleagues in the Commission, if not the riders likely to be impacted by such decisions. Unfortunately, in this instance, only when it was too late in the day did Vanita Malhotra wake up the grim reality that some athletes were being discriminated against. And that she had played into the hands of conniving officials.

One of the two officials who have led EFI down the destruction route has been found in conflict on selection matters. EFI Vice President (Finance) Harish Khokhar, whose son leased a horse to one of the probables, allowed himself to form and name himself in the Committee of Experts without any hesitation.

Talking of such officials, it must be said, at the cost of repetition, that in the process of showing themselves as more loyal than the king, some Army officers in the EFI and outside are harming the reputation of the hallowed institution. It is time for the Army brass to tick off such officers and ensure that they do not continue to hurt its image as a fair and responsible organisation.

Since Col. Jaiveer Singh’s role in allowing Indian riders to compete as part of the Nepal team in the World Cup Tent Pegging qualifers in Greater Noida has come under the scanner, he has not only ensured that the report of the Enquiry Committee would not surface but also played no mean role in removing the Chairman of that committee as a selector under some pretext or the other.

The passive role of the Court-appointed Observer SY Quraishi cannot be overlooked. 

From allowing the EFI Secretary-General Col. Jaiveer Singh to change the EFI Statutes without even informing the Delhi High Court, which has been seized of the matter since 2018, to being a mere spectator when Col. Jaiveer Singh ‘removed’ elected Executive Committee members and Selection Committee members in July last, SY Quraishi has been conspicuous with his silence. 

EFI now finds itself in a deep hole to claw its way out of, no thanks also to its slack approach to the task of finding a way to move horses from India to China. Since none of the riders who obtained MERs in India can fly their horses to prepare for the Asian Games, it will have to perforce pick the team from among riders based overseas and from those it will send now. 

However, EFI will first have to appoint a National Coach before calling the expanded set of probables to a training camp in Europe. Between the riders and the Federation, they will have to find horses to lease until the Asian Games (and the best ‘available’ horses would have been taken), compete in FEI events in Europe and then have the selection committee pick the team.

There is one major problem area that surfaces now since EFI has left itself with no Selection Committee to nominate the National Coach or pick the team after the competitions in Europe. It would be in the best interest of sport and its athletes if the letters removing the Selection Committee are withdrawn, by the EFI on its own or by the Court.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports may have had a point in not interfering with a National Sports Federation’s selection policy. However, these are peculiar circumstances. The lame duck EFI India does not have a Selection Committee. And that alone should be reason for the Ministry to step in with an oversight committee of Arjuna Award winners to select the Asian Games team.