The High Court of Delhi has directed Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) to consider including deserving athletes who were left out of the Indian show jumping squad for next month’ Asian Youth Games if there was scope for more names to be sent (to the Bahrain 2025 Asian Youth Games Organising Committee, BAYGOC).
In an order on September 4 in a writ filed by 16-year-old Fateh Jahaan Singh Dhaliwaal, Justice Sachin Datta also directed the EFI (Executive Committee) and the Indian Olympic Association to file respective affidavits, stating the number of athletes whose names have been sent for participation in the said event, along with their details.
Fateh Jahaan Singh Dhaliwaal thus became the second athlete after Vaasvi Khaitan to move Court after being excluded from the squad. They are among Indian juniors who have competed in FEI-listed events this year but did not find favour with the EFI Selection Committee and the EFI Executive Committee’s list of probables prepared in July.
With the results of all riders in EFI events in India hard to come by on its website, it has proved to be tough for circleofsport.com to collate data of those who have not taken part in FEI-listed competitions this year. After the last piece on the website, Col. Jaiveer Singh sent the results of the Junior National Equestrian Championships for juniors and young riders.
If the members of the Selection Committee – and, for good measure, the Executive Committee itself, look up the FEI website, they will find that with 27 starts in the FEI events in 2024 and 2025 so far, Vaasvi Khaitan has competed in more events than all other selected athletes put together except M Krishna Sahithi who had 31 starts.
For all that, as Justice Sachin Datta wrote in his earlier order, it may not be possible now for either EFI or Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to make changes to the list of rider-horse combinations sent by the August 31 deadline. The IOA has already informed the Court that it could enter only four riders on BAYGOC’s games management system.
Some confusion has arisen within India since the FEI put out a form in which a National Federation could name eight rider-horse combinations and two reserve horses by August 31. Yet, the BAYGOC system seems to have allowed each National Olympic Committee to register only four rider-horse combinations from the respective National Federation.
The Executive Committee argued in Court that it got to know of the Asian Youth Games only in July and it scrambled to have 11 entries registered on the BAYGOC website through IOA. On his part, Col. Jaiveer Singh (retd.) had compiled a list of 19 riders. As many as six riders were common to both lists.
The Executive Committee did not intend to conduct selection trials at any stage while Col. Jaiveer Singh had proposed trials to be held in Europe between August 2 and 24. As things panned out, this proposal could not be actualised since it was part of the agenda of an Extraordinary General Meeting slated for August 17 which the High Court of Delhi stayed.
Be that as it may, since horses based in India are not allowed into Bahrain, the riders have to team up with horses from Europe or lease them from BAYGOC. Gence, conducting selection trials in Europe at this late stage comes across as a near-impossible task. At best, a confirmatory trial could now be held to assess the form of the rider-horse combination.
This may become imperative – and be an integral part of apparent due diligence – since two of the four first-choice riders have not competed in FEI-listed events since October last. Like mentioned earlier, it is tough to track the performance of these riders in domestic competitions in the absence of full data on the EFI websites.
(This piece has been updated on Sept 10, 2025, to include the fact that selection trials had been proposed by Col. Jaiveer Singh in the EOGM Notice issued on August 2, 2025)
