Plea filed before Bombay High Court against dissolution of Sharad Pawar-led committee of State Wrestling Association

The Maharashtra State Wrestling Association (MSWA) has moved the Bombay High Court against the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) challenging what it alleged to be a "sudden dissolution" of MSWA's elected committee led by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar. .When the matter came up for hearing on Friday before a division bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and SM Modak, the WFI sought time to file its response and also undertook to keep the election results of the new committee under wraps till the next date of hearing on August 23.The MSWA in its plea pointed out that the committee was being controlled by Pawar for the last 40 years. However, in a recent National Executive Meeting, the WFI headed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP took a decision to dissolve the committee. This sudden decision was challenged by the MSWA claiming the dissolution decision was taken in an arbitrary manner.The association also cited news reports which claimed that the control of the MSWA was being handed over to Ramdas Tadas, a BJP MP from Wardha constituency..The committee headed by Pawar was last elected in 2019 under the oversight of State's Deputy Charity Commissioner in Pune for five years and its tenure was to end in 2023.The plea filed through advocate Tushar Pawar challenged a communication dated July 4 by which the committee's General Secretary BS Landge informed its members that their committee has been dissolved and an ad-hoc committee was constituted to oversee the issue.On July 11, the ad-hoc committee headed by Sanjay Kumar Singh issued a notice of convening a special meeting of the general council of MWSA to hold elections on July 31, 2022..The petition highlighted that as per Article 28 of the WFI's constitution, it cannot disaffiliate any association without issuing a show-cause notice and an opportunity to be heard."However, in the present case, no such notice was issued neither any opportunity was given to my clients for hearing their side of the matter. In fact, they weren't even aware that such a decision was being taken by the WFI," the plea said.Citing newspaper reports, the plea pointed out that on the date of withdrawal of nomination forms, some contenders 'very conveniently' withdrew their forms and a new body was selected, with all posts being filled without elections in an unopposed manner..The petition further contended that WFI did not have authority or power to dissolve or elect any committee for any association affiliated to it. Except the Charity Commissioner, nobody is entitled to dissolve it since it was appointed as per the rules of the Bombay Public Trusts, it was submitted..Advocate Ajinkya Udane appeared for WFI while advocate Rajeev Chavan appeared for the Central government.