"This is because the FIFA requires a democratically elected body of AIFF to oversee the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup", a Division Bench composing of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant observed.
The Women's World Cup Tournament will commence on October 11, 2022 and will be hosted by India.
During the hearing today, Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra submitted that neither the court nor the AIFF should be rushed into the decision making process regarding the constitution. In this regard, he suggested two alternatives.
One, the interim body appointed by the Court, i.e., the Committee of Administrators [COA], one administrator or a sports person could take over. Or, via an interim election, a body could come up by 15th or 16th of September which can oversee the Women's Tournament scheduled to commence in a few months' time.
Hearing this, the bench observed that the court would be essentially looking into two aspects for now. "First, the finalisation of the broader constitution. The other aspect is the finalisation of at least the modalities in the constitution for the holding of the elections", the bench said.
When asked how long it would take to finalise the constitution, Senior Advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan, appearing for the COA submitted,
"We had an extensive meeting with Mr. ASG Sanjay Jain, and we have produced the minutes. We have accepted all recommendations from the committee because it is reasonable. Not because it came from the Ministry…..Only issue on mode of including players in the general body."
Adding on, Shankarnarayan informed that,
"When we reached out to AIFF officials regarding the players list, they did not have one. This is shocking, according to me. We don't know who played 10 or 15 matches. The problem is, if there is a requirement that a player who has played 10-15 matches only be included in the body, we don't know who has played those many matches."
Since there's a lot of disarray at the administrative end of AIFF, a methodology to get things in order has to be figured out.
With this, he said, "A good number of objections have been accepted, a large part, based on everybody's suggestions. Obviously, some people will feel left out about some part or other. But the idea is not to make everybody happy. The idea is to take Indian Football forward and create a good democratic constitutional set up because we believe that this will easily be used as a template by other sports associations."
On the point of conduct of elections, Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy, appearing for the State Associations said that what has to be decided is who would vote in those elections.
"We will look into the modalities of the elections and electoral college as well", the Bench said.
Mehra added, "All this can be kept later. With basic parameters of good governance, milords can decide. Now with a deadline put in by FIFA…….I don't understand. This is the Supreme Court...How can a private party(FIFA) sitting abroad dictate what has to happen ? But I don't want to get into confrontational mode now."
The Court then stepped in to inform that it may not have enough time to finalize AIFF's constitution before the deadline prescribed by FIFA.
".....we may not have the time to look into the entirety of the constitution. We go by the suggestion Mr Viswanathan, Shankarnarayan have made, that lets at least issue some directions for the holding of elections in order to conduct the Women's Tournament."
In the
previous hearing, the court was told by Additional Solicitor General of India Sanjay Jain and Sidharth Singh, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs that FIFA expects that the inauguration of the under seventeen women's tournament will be carried out under the aegis of a democratically elected body of AIFF. Such a body should be elected by September, 2022.
These developments came as part of a plea filed by Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra, who had pointed out that while the National Sports Code made it mandatory for each candidate to be nominated by one member association and seconded by another member, the AIFF had stipulated that each candidate had to be nominated by five member associations.
On November 10, 2017, by way of an interim order, the Top Court had stayed the operation of the Delhi High Court's judgment and the directions issued in para 22. It had also appointed former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi and former Indian football team captain Bhaskar Ganguly as a committee of administrators to bring the AIFF's constitution in sync with the National Sports Code. In May 2022, the Supreme Court had appointed former SC judge Justice AR Dave as the head of the COA.
The apex court said the administrators should prepare a draft of the AIFF constitution and be assisted by the office-bearers while keeping in mind that its reputation is not undermined in FIFA.
Case Title: AIFF v. Rahul Mehra| SLP(C) No. 30748-30749/2017