All India Tennis Association's 'electoral college vitiated', alleges sports lawyer Rahul Mehra

PUNE: All India Tennis Association's "very electoral college is vitiated," claimed respected sports lawyer Rahul Mehra, after the Delhi High Court stayed the publication of AITA's election results on Tuesday.
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav issued the stay order while taking up a writ petition filed by Davis Cuppers Somdev Dev, who is also a double gold medallist from 2010 Asian Games, and Purav Raja.
Election for the AITA's office bearers is scheduled to be held during its Annual General Meeting on Sep 28 in New Delhi.
Devvarman and Raja had sought a stay on the holding of election itself, citing violation of the National Violation of Sports Code. The judge, however, has allowed the polls to go ahead.
The writ petition has made the central government party to the case, claiming it had not made an effort to ensure the AITA was compliant with the sports code.
The next date of hearing is Oct 14.
"The court has said that election results are stayed, they will not be published by the Returning Officer," Mehra, the counsel for the petitioners, said.
"They will be kept in a sealed cover and placed before the court. Elections are subject to the final decision in the matter.
"And the court has also observed that in case (they) find that the violations are there, as alleged by the petitioners, then we will have an independent administrator who will run the body, and that person will then sense the entire thing up."
Listing the alleged violations, Mehra said "the very electoral college is vitiated".
"There are violations of Rahul Mehra judgment of 16th of August, 2022. Number one being, the age and tenure restrictions are only being applied to the top three posts of president, secretary, treasurer, while now they have to be, you know, across the board on all the elected members," he said.
"There are almost 12 people on whom cooling off period applies. And they are all contesting, they're all in the nomination list approved by the RO.
"Number three, none of the states and the district federations (sic) .. in that sense, are compliant with the Code as interpreted by the judgment.
"So, since everybody comes from the bottom of the pyramid, the very electoral college is vitiated in that sense.
"Then they have a managing committee, which is very unique to tennis, other than executive committee. Executive Committee, otherwise, is the top most body. But out here, it's a managing committee which has handpicked nominations of anybody who may or may not be even concerned with the sport of tennis.
"And they are kind of a super body sitting over the executive body, which is unknown to sports administration.
"Then, (in) the executive committee, they have 25 members. You can't have more than 12.
"Then, it's mandatory to have a minimum 25% eminent sports persons of outstanding merit, both in the General Assembly and the executive committee. They don't have that.
"They don't have a mechanism of Athlete Commission's elections, because all these players have to come through elections and not hand picked by the federation bosses, so that they're independent and don't toe the line of these administrators.
The draft constitution of the IOA -- framed by Justice L Nageswara Rao under the supervision of the Supreme Court in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee -- mandates the appointment of a Chief Executive Officer in place of an honorary secretary general.
Mehra clarified that while the All India Football Federation's constitution allows for a paid secretary, the essential idea of the clause was to differentiate the executive arm and the administration of the sport.
He categorically said that the appointment of a CEO has to be done as per due process.
"The CEO runs the entire show, not the elected president or the secretary," he said. "There has to be interviews, there has to be advertisement, there has to be a certain income, salary, all of that."
Mehra said he was aware of the recent controversy surrounding the country's No. 1 men's player Sumit Nagal's skipping the Davis Cup tie against Sweden and India's subsequent 0-4 loss in Stockholm.
"Our entire thing is that the administration should be out of the hands of these people and there should be an independent administrator. Once the independent administrator comes, then all of these will be looked into."