Supreme Court orders status quo on handing over charge of Indian Olympic Association to temporary CoA

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered status quo with respect to the Delhi High Court judgment by which a Committee of Administrators (CoA) was appointed to handle the affairs of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) till the election of a new Executive Committee..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Raman and Justice CT Ravikumar ordered that charge of IOA should not be handed over to the CoA for the time being."The charge will not be handed over to the CoA appointed by the Delhi High Court. List on Monday," the Court said.The order was passed after Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta made an urgent mentioning of the matter and said that handing over charge of IOA to a CoA will be considered as third party interference by the international body."This is an important national issue. This is Indian Olympic Association and it is the unit of International body. As per their rules if a national level body is represented by a non elected body, it will be treated to be a third party interference. We are bound by their rules," the SG said.When CoA takes over there is 90 percent chance of India being suspended from any Olympic event, the SG added.The Court noted that by virtue of High Court's order there is a possibility of losing chances of participation in Olympics and all international events and, therefore, decided to order status quo..The Delhi High Court had on August 16 appointed a CoA comprising former Supreme Court judge, Justice Anil R Dave, former Chief Election Commissioner Dr SY Qureshi and former foreign secretary Vikas Swarup.A Division Bench of Justices Manmohan and Najmi Waziri had directed the erstwhile Executive Committee of the IOA to hand over the charge of the association to the CoA which was also tasked with preparation and adoption of a new Constitution as per the Sports Code and court rulings and conduct of elections within 16 weeks..The High Court had also directed the Centre government not to grant recognition or any facility to the IOA or to any National Sports Federation (NSF) or any of its affiliated associations if they refuse to comply with the Sports Code as directed by the High Court.It further said that it is high time that structural reforms are implemented to remove the mismanagement in the sports bodies and to democratise these institutions.The High Court said that though the logical corollary to the discussion in the judgment would be that IOA would disqualify itself from retention of its recognition as a sports federation because of non-compliance with the Sports Code and the law of the land, the IOA's recognition will not be disturbed, for the duration that the COA assists in bringing IOA's affairs in order..Read more about High Court judgment here.