The Draft National Sports Development Bill 2013, presented to the government on Wednesday, threatens to put the cat among the pigeons, particularly when it comes to the national sports federations (NSFs) and long-serving administrators.
The document, prepared by the working group for drafting of the national sports development Bill 2013 under the chairmanship of Justice (retd) Mukul Mudgal, was submitted to Union sports minister Jitendra Singh on the day.
Among the salient features of the draft are the setting up of an appellate sports tribunal, a sports election commission and provisions to bar charge-sheeted persons from contesting elections.
In a recommendation that will set the country’s most powerful sports body at odds with the sports ministry, the draft suggests that only those federations that come under the Right to Information Act (RTI) ambit will have the right to use ‘India’ as the team’s name.
Clause (h) of the proposed Bill will worry the BCCI as it states: “In order to represent India in international events and to have a right for a particular sport federation to use ‘India’ or ‘Indian’ in the sport scenario, the federation shall have to comply with Chapter IV (Unethical practices in Sports) and Chapter IX (Applicability of Right to Information Act).”
The BCCI is not a registered NSF as it does not take government grant and thus cannot be brought under RTI but if the Draft Sports Bill is finally passed by Parliament, then Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Co. can’t officially represent ‘India’ at international tournaments. In Kolkata, BCCI’s interim chief Jagmohan Dalmiya declined to comment before having a detailed look at the document.
“In order to bring about transparency and good governance in the NSFs, the sports ministry had decided to establish a group under the chairmanship of Justice Mudgal earlier this year, to prepare a revised draft of the bill, which was initially drafted in 2011,” the ministry said in a statement.
A copy of the draft will now be sent to the International Olympic Committee for its comments, following an agreement between Indian officials and the IOC in their May 15 Lausanne meeting.
The draft deals with age and tenure guidelines under which all office bearers of the Indian Olympic Association and NSFs will retire at the age of 70. A person who has served as an officer bearer on the executive body of a NSF/NOC for two consecutive terms shall be ineligible to stand for election, it suggests.
It, however, moots that the president shall be eligible to hold office for 12 years or three terms of four years with or without a break and also that an office bearer of one NSF shall be ineligible to hold be an office bearer in another NSF.