High Court Appoints Retired Justice Pankaj Naqvi As Administrator Of Delhi Capital Badminton Association

The Delhi High Court has appointed retired judge of Allahabad High Court, Justice Pankaj Naqvi, as administrator of the Delhi Capital Badminton Association.

A division bench of Justice Yashwant Varma and Justice Dharmesh Sharma ordered that Justice Naqvi shall be entitled to take over the day-to-day affairs and administration of the Association, subject to further orders.

The bench directed all the elected members, officers and employees of the Association to extend all cooperation to the court appointed Administrator.

The court was dealing with an appeal challenging a single judge bench order wherein directions were issued for conducting the elections of the Association in 2021. Days after the single judge passed the impugned order, the appeal was moved and the division bench stayed the election of the Association.

In an order passed on September 26, the bench requested Justice Naqvi to review the affairs of the Association and submit a detailed report identifying the issues of priority, including review of Association’s constitution at the very outset and the amendments, if any, which are liable to be incorporated in order to bring it in line with the National Sports Code and the directions issued by a coordinate bench in Rahul Mehra v. Union of India & Ors.

“The Administrator shall be entitled to draw a fee of Rs.2.50 lakhs per month along with incidental expenses which shall be borne by the DCBA. We request the Administrator to submit a preliminary report on or before the next date fixed,” the bench said.

Furthermore, the court discharged former Justice Brijesh Sethi who was appointed as the Returning Officer for conducting and streamlining the affairs of the Association.

Taking note of the inter se dispute between parties, the court observed that the affairs of the Association were not streamlined and that the organization was not able to place its house in order.The court also noted that there was a serious dispute with respect to the authority of various office bearers.

“In order to avoid a further deterioration in the affairs of the DCBA and to safeguard the larger public interest underlying the sport as well as the sportspersons dependent upon it, we are constrained to observe that the circumstances clearly warrant the appointment of an Administrator,” the court said while listing the matter for hearing next on November 01.

Senior Advocate N. Hariharan, with Advocates Shri Singh, Talha Abdul Rahman, Aakanksha Singh, Siddharth Yadav, M. Shaz Khan, Gayatri Dahiya, Adnan Yusuf and Gurfateh Singh Khosa appeared dor the appellant.

Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra, with Advocates Alok Bhachawat, R.A. Iyer, Saloni Jagga, Chaitanya Gosain and Anand Thumbayil appeared for DCBA.

CGSC Anil Soni, with Advocate Devvrat Yadav appeared for UOI.

ASC Rishikesh Kumar appeared for GNCTD, with Advocates Sumit Choudhary, Sudhir and Sheenu Priya.

Title: SP Singh Dhillon v. Delhi Capital Badminton Association & Ors.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 914

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