Bombay High Court Holds Special Hearing On Independence Day, Allows Badminton Player's Wild Card Entry In International Tournament

A division bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Arun Pednekar held a special hearing on Independence Day due to paucity of time as the deadline for petitioner's name to be added to the final list of participants was 5 PM on August 15. The court had issued notice to respondents on August 12 and scheduled a special hearing on August 15.

Due to clerical mistakes on the part of Badminton Authority of India (BAI), the petitioner's name was not included in the participant list for the tournament.

The court held, "For the sake of clarity, we hold that if there is no impediment, the petitioner would be entitled to play at Pune from 30.08.2022, by giving him a Wild Card entry, if permissible. However, this would be subject to the policies or guidelines of Badminton Asia/BWF".

The petitioner had applied to participate in the India Junior International Grand Prix, 2022 to be held in Pune. He had filled his details such as his name, date of birth, gender, and ranking correctly in the form. However, his name appeared in the list of female participants.

He requested the BAI for a correction. His gender was corrected but then there was an error in his date of birth. He pointed it out and was told that the mistake has been rectified. However, his name was deleted from the list of female participants but not entered in the list of male participants. His application was considered to be withdrawn.

The petitioner approached the court seeking a direction to BAI to generate a new and accurate BWF ID to enable him to participate in the tournament.

The court observed that the petitioner was not at fault and the situation was created by the repeated mistakes of the BAI. The court concluded that the petitioner had not withdrawn his name from the tournament and should be allowed to play in the Pune Tournament subject to the policies of Badminton Association of Asia and the Badminton World Federation.

The court noted the submission of BAI that if the petitioner misses the Pune tournament, his name would be forwarded to India Maharashtra International Challenge, 2022 to be held in Nagpur from September 13^th.

The court recorded, "there shall be no further mistake by respondent No.2 with regard to the petitioner and in view of the statement in paragraph No.10, the petitioner would be held eligible to play at Nagpur."

Case No. – Writ Petition No. 8435 Of 2022

Case Title – Prathamesh v. Union of India and Anr.

Coram – Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Arun R. Pedneker