Respite for Olympian judoka, HC orders filming of retrial
NEW DELHI: In a judgement that is expected to counter the menace of federation officials favouring individuals in selection trials, the Delhi High Court has directed the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Judo Federation of India (JFI) to videograph the re-trial bout of judoka Garima Chaudhary, an Olympian, who was declared loser in a trial bout despite evidence showing she had actually won.
The court has also asked for the constitution of an independent refereeing commission to oversee the trial and also installation of electronic scoring systems so that Garima does not get shortchanged again.
Acting on a petition filed by Garima — who appeared for trials in March this year for the Asian Championships in Kuwait (May 13-15) and ‘lost’ to Nirupama — the court went by the advice of four SAI experts, who studied mobile phone video evidence and declared that the Olympian judoka had been wronged.
The court in its earlier order had asked SAI to constitute a panel of four experts who said in their report that “the petitioner (Garima) ought to have been declared the winner in her bout with Nirupama”.
The re-trial is set to take place on May 11 at the Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi, two days before the championships commence in Kuwait, where Nirupama, Suribala Devi and Garima will compete in front of an independent jury.
EVIDENCE SHOWN
Lawyer for the petitioner, Rahul Mehra, said the “JFI did its best to ensure Garima was not part of the Kuwait-bound squad. We gave the SAI’s four-member panel the mobile phone video evidence which clearly showed she had won and that she should have been in the team for the Asians.
“Garima has been fighting a running battle with the JFI. When she raised her voice for a foreign coach, the federation started victimising the Haryana judoka. She was not sent for the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon despite being the national champion. Late last year, she was not allowed to compete in the Nationals from Haryana as officials said she had domicile issues.
“They asked her to compete from Manipur and then went on to disqualify the entire team from the north-eastern state,” said Mehra.
“On March 21, when the Asian Championships trials were scheduled, we knew the officials would again try to sideline her. So, we gathered mobile phone evidence and presented it in court.”