Supreme Court seeks response on plea challenging stay on WFI elections

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the Centre and others on a plea by the ad-hoc committee constituted to run the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) challenging a stay imposed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on holding elections to the wrestling body. A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal issued notice to the Centre, Haryana Wrestling Association, Haryana Olympic Association and others while seeking their replies by 3 November. The ad-hoc panel had moved the apex court against the 25 September order of the high court putting the elections on hold. The top court had on 29 August refused to interfere with the high court’s order staying the WFI elections. The development had come days after United World Wrestling, the global governing body for the sport, suspended WFI for not conducting its elections on time. The Indian Olympic Association-appointed ad-hoc panel governing the WFI had initially scheduled the elections for 6 July but was forced to reschedule it to 11 July after some disaffiliated state bodies from Maharashtra, Haryana, Telangana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh approached it for a hearing, claiming their dismissal was not appropriate. The panel heard the aggrieved representatives of the state bodies but the polls could not be held even on 11 July, with the Gauhati High Court staying the elections after the Assam Wrestling Association (AWA) sought the right to participate in the poll process.