SC terms WFI challenge to Vinesh Phogat participation ‘infructuous’

The Supreme Court dismissed the Wrestling Federation of India's plea against a Delhi High Court order permitting wrestler Vinesh Phogat to participate in Asian Games selection trials, calling it infructuous after subsequent developments. The court left all legal issues open without endorsing the high court's observations

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by the Wrestling Federation of India against a Delhi High Court order allowing wrestler Vinesh Phogat to participate in selection trials, terming it as infructuous in view of subsequent developments.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Aravind Kumar, which refused to go into the observations made by the high court, said this court should not be taken as having reiterated the findings and observations made in the order.

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Without directing the expunging of “objectionable” observations in the high court order, the bench said all the issues are left open and dismissed the WFI’s plea Senior advocate DN Goburdhun, appearing for the WFI, said Phogat was allowed to participate in the selection trials but she did not succeed.

“She did not succeed but she created havoc over there,” the senior counsel told the bench. The bench told him that the issue had become infructuous. Goburdhun submitted that there were certain observations made by the high court with regard to decisions of the federation and terming them “mala fide” and “deplorable”. “All these observations will have to go as the matter is pending before the single bench,” the senior counsel submitted.

The top court then left the questions open and disposed of the plea while terming it as infructuous. On May 29, the top court permitted Phogat to participate in the selection trials to be held on May 30 and 31 for the Asian Games 2026.

The WFI had challenged the Delhi High Court order of May 22 allowing Phogat to participate in the selection trials. The top court had also expressed concern over the manner in which the high court dealt with the matter.

On May 22, a division bench of the high court had given its nod to the participation of Phogat in the upcoming trials for the Asian Games, saying the WFI’s selection policy was exclusionary for the lack of discretion to consider an iconic player like her, returning from a maternity break.

The high court ordered that the selection trials would be video-recorded by the WFI and an independent observer from the Sports Authority of India and the Indian Olympic Association each would remain present.

It had said the standard for the selection trials marks significant deviation from the past practice, which provided for discretion for the selection of iconic players for the Asian Games, and added that the law must ensure that motherhood does not become a ground to exclude female athletes like Phogat. Motherhood, it had asserted, cannot be treated as a professional impediment or a circumstance warranting adverse treatment.

The high court had further observed that grounds taken by the WFI in the May 9 show-cause notice to Phogat “appear to be pre-mediated and reopening the closed issues” and that “it is necessary that the appellant is permitted to participate in the selection trials in the interest of the sport and justice”.

It had also taken exception to the WFI terming Phogat’s disqualification in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games a “national embarrassment” in the show-cause notice, stating that such a statement was “deplorable”, “ex-facie misconceived” and “ought to have been avoided”.

It had passed the order on Phogat’s appeal against a May 18 order of a single-judge bench that had denied her immediate relief on the issue of her participation in the selection trials.

Earlier this month, the WFI had declared Phogat ineligible to participate in domestic events till June 26, citing the mandatory six-month notice period linked to athletes returning from retirement under anti-doping rules.

A defiant Phogat, however, showed up at the National Open Ranking Tournament in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda. Phogat had participated in a protest staged by women wrestlers in 2023 against alleged sexual harassment by the then WFI president and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

In August 2024, Phogat was disqualified from the 50-kg category Olympic finals for being 100 gm overweight in the morning weigh-in.