Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, July 17: After the participation of Athletic Players of Kerala impersonating as Island Players in a National event in 2009, there was a vacuum in Athletic arena of these Islands.
Even though a police case was registered, by the passing of time there seems to be an agreement among the police department and Athletic Association of A &N that ‘any person of our country can represent any State’.
This stand of the police department is in contrary to what the byelaws of Athletic Association of A &N Says. As per the byelaw, the aim of this Association is to ‘Promote the game of Athletics in A &N Islands’.
The game can never be promoted if Islander is not given an opportunity to represent these Islands at National Level.
In this way the major clause of Registration of Societies Act has been violated.
Apart from this the most important question is how come the players of Kerala knew of Selection of Islands team, when this was never advertised?
It clearly means that someone has brought Kerala Players’ to these Islands with the ill motive to fraudulently allow them to participate in a national, in a berth reserved for Island players.
This aspect and the byelaw of the State Athletic Association have been overlooked by the Police Department to give a clean chit to this Association.
Interestingly the ‘Constitution’ of Athletic Federation of India says, “….the formulation of State Athletic Association is for development of athletics within a State”. Apart from this the constitution further asserts that “All constituent organization (State Association) of the Federation shall abide by the rules and Regulations. They shall be responsible for conducting competitions / sending Athletes for all the national level competitions. Each affiliated organizations shall direct its own activities, conduct its competitions and control its athletes in accordance with the principles set forth in the rules and regulations and bye-laws of the federation”. ”
Moreover, if any player can represent any State, what is the use of constitution of separate body for each State. This aspect is also being overlooked by the investigating agency to close this case in a hurry under political pressure.
It is reliably learned that the present case against Athletic Association is likely to be closed soon by giving a clean chit to those who have allowed other State players to participate in a national as a contingent of A &N team.
If this matter is closed in this matter, this sorry state of affairs will continue and the local talents will be denied opportunities in the future as well to present their state on the pretext that India is a democratic country and any citizen of India can go to any place in India. Thus they can also fraudulently steal the berth meant of other State players.
Sadly Andaman Sheekha team tried to get an official comment on this issue and even after trying for nearly four times the police department did not give a comment to Andaman Sheekha in this regard. Does this shows that something is wrong behind closing this case?
