The Delhi High Court, under Justice Sachin Datta, issued a stay on the Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) decision to establish an ad-hoc panel to manage the Boxing Federation of India’s affairs. This interim order came after the federation contested the IOA’s move, alleging it was unilaterally made without prior notice and thus breached natural justice principles.
The court has requested the IOA to respond within two weeks and scheduled the next hearing for March 27. This decision mirrors a similar judgment in the Bihar Olympic Association case, where the high court overturned the IOA’s decision to appoint an ad-hoc body, ruling that the IOA president lacked the authority to independently manage the affairs of a state association.
During the court proceedings, the counsel for the Boxing Federation argued that the ad-hoc committee’s appointment on February 24 was executed unilaterally by the IOA president, contravening the federation’s regulations and the broader governance framework of the IOA itself. According to the counsel, such actions violated not only procedural fairness but also the established rights of the federation under its own governance rules.*
In response, the IOA’s legal representation mentioned that a meeting had been scheduled for March 7 between the IOA president and officials from the Boxing Federation of India to seek an amicable resolution to the dispute.
The origin of the conflict stemmed from the IOA’s creation of a five-member ad-hoc committee on February 24, citing the Boxing Federation’s failure to conduct timely elections. This move by the IOA parallels the earlier intervention in the Bihar Olympic Association, where a January 1 order by IOA president P T Usha was similarly set aside by the court. In that case, the court directed the Bihar Olympic Association to conduct its elections within three months, adding that failure to comply would permit the IOA to take appropriate disciplinary actions.
