Draft National Sports Governance Bill, 2024: Aimed to circumvent a High Court ruling?

Decades from now, when the history of the first fifty years of law governing sports is written, sportspersons will at best be a footnote; quite possibly, a footnote that a copyeditor will delete for lack of relevance. This is because sportspersons have as much protection and say in law regulating sports governance as a mouse does in the design of a maze that it runs. However, as with the mice, sportspersons have no option but to accept their fate and run the maze in the hope of getting a bite of cheese at the end.

Every aspect of sport is governed by specialised, self-governing societies called National Sports Federations (NSFs). If a sportsperson wants to play a sport, they are beholden to these NSFs either directly or indirectly. Each sport has an NSF recognised by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. These NSFs receive funding from the Ministry and enjoy a monopoly over their sport.

If a sportsperson wants to play the sport competitively, they can do so only if the game is sanctioned by the NSF and organised by the NSF’s state-level or district-level member. If they want to participate in national championships or the national games, or even internationally, they have to be selected and approved by the NSF first. If they want to attend a training camp for an event or even for selections, they have to wait for the NSF to organise the camp. Of course, a sportsperson can train independently or under a private coach, and can play casually with their friends or other enthusiasts. But if a sportsperson wishes to make a career out of their sport, they need the blessings of the NSF. If they want to even organise or play competitively in a league, the league has to be approved and permitted by the NSF, or they will be banned.

How NSFs function

For nearly thirty years since independence, these NSFs had absolutely no regulation or oversight by the Central government. This, despite receiving funding for effectively all their activities from the Ministry. The Ministry (and other governmental bodies, state governments etc) gave these NSFs access to stadia owned by it at highly concessional rates. They received travel and tax concessions from the government.

Nonetheless, they had no accountability or responsibility for their actions. There was no oversight to verify that selections were merit-based and not impelled by nepotism, favouritism or even graft. The national team could well be comprised of people who greased palms or scratched backs and the lack of oversight meant that an ordinary citizen was none the wiser. Worse, aspirants could face demands for favours, sexual or otherwise, even for opportunities or selection on merit, and they had no authority to appeal to for their protection. In any event, given that they were beholden to the persons in control, the fear of retribution left sportspersons (including those of very vulnerable ages) no option of ever complaining.

This combination of near-total control over the lives and careers of aspirants and sportspersons, lack of complete oversight or accountability for results at events, and unstinted funding and assistance created the perfect situation for a person in control to exploit. Unsurprisingly, a person who took control over an NSF never wanted to relinquish the control. Positions in the Executive Committee of an NSF saw people remaining in power for years and even decades without an end in sight.

President for life?

This situation has not changed even now. What changed nearly fifty years ago was not the situation, but the laws. In 1975, the government issued guidelines with a view to bringing some accountability to NSFs. The 1975 guidelines largely had administrative requirements for NSFs. However, it had a significant mandate: office-bearers like President, Secretary General and Treasurer should relinquish their office if they have held the post for two terms or eight years (each term was for four years, to coincide with the Olympic Games).

Though this did not make NSFs any more accountable, at least this meant that a person could not hold an office for as long as they desired. It might have served to break entrenched power structures by reducing concentration of power, and ensuring regular turnover of persons in power. We say “might”, because the provision was never seriously implemented. Some NSFs saw a change in personnel at their next election, but many of those who were ousted using the provision returned shortly thereafter.

The next three decades in fact saw many NSFs being helmed by persons who would hold office for a decade or more, without any objection from the government. Revised guidelines were issued in 1988, 1997, and 2001. The government continued to pay the NSFs funds and provide assistance. Nonetheless, the government never actually implemented the tenure restrictions. As a consequence, power continued to concentrate in the same hands for years on end. When the tenure restrictions were stressed upon in the 2001 Guidelines, the Ministry even went to the extent of obliging the objecting NSFs by keeping the tenure restrictions in abeyance.

In May 2010, the Ministry reintroduced the restrictions in a slightly modified form. It fixed an age limit of 70 years and revised the tenure limit so office-bearers of NSFs could now serve a maximum of three terms of four years, or a total of twelve years. However, except for the President, the other office-bearers could not serve more than eight years at a stretch without undergoing a cooling-off period of four years. This was reiterated in the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011 (Sports Code). The Sports Code also insisted that at least 25% of the management and membership of NSFs must be prominent sportspersons of outstanding merit.

The IOA fiasco

While this was happening, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was embroiled in the one of the most embarrassing episodes of Indian sports. The IOA is an NSF in that it is a national-level body dealing with sports. It liaises between India and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organisation responsible for the Olympic Games.

From around mid-2010, a reform process was underway for the IOA. The IOC insisted on the inclusion of a clause in the Constitution of the IOA that a person against whom charges were framed by a court cannot participate in elections to the IOA, or hold a post in IOA. The IOC insisted that this is necessary to ensure that the reputation of the Olympic movement is not tarnished. Adopting this would have barred a significant number of persons who were interested in contesting for elections in December 2012.

The IOC warned the IOA that if it does not remedy the situation and instead holds elections, the IOA will be suspended from the Olympic movement. The vested interests in the IOA, however, paid no heed. Left with no option, the IOC suspended the IOA a day prior to the elections. Unfazed, the IOA still held elections. Notably, the persons who were elected as President and Secretary General both had charges framed against them, and would have been disqualified if the IOC’s suggested reform had been adopted.

The suspension was imposed in December 2012, and the 2014 Winter Olympics were scheduled for February 2014. The IOA had fourteen months to fix the situation so sportspersons who qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympics can participate under the Indian flag. The IOA instead spent twelve months trying to cajole the IOC into letting charge-framed persons hold office before finally succumbing. Even after adopting the change suggested by IOC, the IOA did not hold elections in December 2013 as suggested by IOC. It chose to hold its election two days after the opening ceremony for the 2014 Winter Olympics, leaving the three sportspersons who qualified for the event to participate in the opening ceremony as Independent Olympic Participants.

The apathy continues

This apathy towards sportspersons was not exclusive to NSFs. The Ministry barely, if ever, implemented the age and tenure restrictions in its own Sports Code. It never implemented the requirement that at least 25% of the management and membership of NSFs must be sportspersons. This led to the High Court of Delhi delivering a judgment in 2022 sharply criticising the Ministry’s failure to implement the Sports Code.

The Court made it clear that no person in an NSF (or any of its state or district associations) should be permitted to hold office for more than twelve years, or for more than eight years at a stretch. The Court further directed the Ministry to not provide any funds or assistance to any NSF that does not comply with the Sports Code, including the age and tenure restrictions and requirement of inclusion of sportspersons.

Within the next two years of this judgment, the High Court of Delhi interfered with elections of no less than three NSFs (Kabaddi, Gymnastics, Volleyball) for not complying with the 2022 judgment. At least two of these three matters were filed by sportspersons, with the third being filed by a coach of a sportsperson. The angst of sportspersons is clear: nearly 15 years after mandating inclusion of sportspersons, and nearly 50 years after imposing tenure restrictions, the government is now ignoring judgments of courts and permitting NSFs to hold elections.

So it is unsurprising that the Ministry has now come up with the Draft National Sports Governance Bill, 2024, which once again dilutes the age and tenure restrictions. The Bill is quite clearly aimed at circumventing the 2022 judgment. Troublingly, the Bill also reduces the proportion of sportspersons in the membership of NSFs from 25% to 10%, though the reason for this is also not difficult to ascertain. While the first fifty years of law governing sports at least indulged in pretence of wanting the best for sports and sportsperson, the Bill has sent a clear signal: for the Ministry, sportspersons, like mice, must only run the maze and hope for a bite of cheese in the end. Nothing more, nothing less.

R Arunadhri Iyer is an advocate practicing at the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court.