Earlier this month, the Delhi High Court stayed the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) order suspending the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) over the delay in holding elections. Last Friday, the BFI’s Himachal Pradesh unit threatened to take the federation to court for rejecting the nomination of its presidential candidate, former Union Minister Anurag Thakur, for the March 28 polls.
Boxing isn’t the only sport seeking judicial intervention in administrative issues. In fact, it is among the 49 sports where the courts are moderators, with a significant number of cases related to disputes over governance body elections or team selection.
According to data compiled by sports law experts, since 2015, approximately 770 lawsuits related to sports and sporting bodies are at different stages in the courts and central tribunals across the country. Of these, 462 are in High Courts and 22 in the Supreme Court.
While most of the lawsuits are routine administrative matters plaguing government-run sports bodies, 200-odd cases are those where a national sports federation is either a petitioner or a respondent. Of these, 150 cases are related to governance body elections or other issues and 64 involve disgruntled athletes who missed out on selection.
When asked for comment, a senior Sports Ministry official pointed to the Draft National Sports Governance Bill, 2024, saying the proposed legislation could reduce the burden on the courts.
“One of the recommendations in the Bill is to form an Appellate Sports Tribunal, similar to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. So, the aggrieved parties will first have to approach the proposed tribunal. If dissatisfied with the verdict, they can move the Supreme Court,” the official told The Indian Express. The Ministry published the Bill last October for public feedback, with the hope of tabling it in the ongoing Budget Session.
According to Vidushpat Singhania, managing partner of sports law firm Krida Legal, the data highlights the “lack of transparency” in Indian sports administration. “In selection, the ambiguity in the guidelines and the selection process itself is why the athletes go (to the courts)… In the governance aspect, too, there’s a lack of transparency. You would not see this if the rules were clear and the elections were done absolutely transparently, from the electoral college to the returning officer acting without bias,” he said.
While Singhania has not seen the data, he said the volume of cases suggests “literally every federation is in dispute”. But, he added, he was not surprised.
Indeed. Almost every governing body has to budget for high legal costs — be it little-known sports like dragon boat racers, ball-badminton and silambam or mass games like football, badminton and hockey.
Sample this:
🔴Denied berth in India’s World Athletics Championship squad, middle-distance runner P U Chitra dragged the Athletics Federation of India to the Kerala High Court in 2017. According to the World Athletics data, Chitra’s last competition was in 2023. Her 2017 case is still pending.
🔴 In 11 different court cases from December 2019 to November 2022 have been filed by multiple state federations, accusing the Amateur Baseball Federation of India of “arbitrariness”, acting “illegally” and “stopping” young players from competing in the national championships. The cases are still going on.
🔴 Even before it was codified and the rules were written, two rival bodies emerged in yoga — a sport aspiring to be part of the Asian Games and Olympics. In 2021, the Yoga Federation of India filed a petition in the Delhi High Court challenging the government’s decision granting recognition to the National Yogasana Sport Federation to govern the sport. The matter is next listed for May 21.
A sports law expert said the sheer number of cases affects funding for athletes as the federations foot enormous legal bills.
“Since almost every federation is fighting court cases that go on for months, if not years, the litigation expenses tend to get very high. Already, the government and privately-run agencies are taking care of the funding for elite athletes. But spending on legal matters limits the federations’ scope financially in youth development as well,” the lawyer said, requesting anonymity.
The All India Football Federation, it was reported in 2022, spent Rs 3 crore fighting legal cases.
Not all cases are about governance issues or election or selection, though. Disgruntled athletes have knocked on the court’s doors in issues related to the National Sports Awards; young athletes in sports ranging from sqay, a martial art, to baseball seeking sports quota seats in higher-education institutes; long-time government employees of the Sports Authority of India or the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan seeking promotions, higher wages and fighting termination.
A total of 770 Sports-related cases are in courts in the last 10 years 
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