NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it must bring the curtain down on issues plaguing the All India Football Federation (AIFF), including the objections raised to certain aspects of its draft constitution.
“We must now bring the finality…I mean the curtain down on the issue related to the federation (AIFF),” PTI quotes a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud as having said.
The bench, also comprising Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, asked senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, assisting it as an amicus curiae, to have a meeting with the counsels of all stakeholders and find out key objections to the draft constitution of AIFF.
“We will list it for hearing after the hearing of the Constitution bench concludes,” the bench said.
Earlier, the bench had observed that the popular sport of football needs to be taken forward and asked people to give suggestions to the amicus curiae on the draft constitution for the sports national federation, observing that “we are doing anything except football”.
On November 9 last year, the bench had asked Sankaranarayanan to tabulate the objections so that the draft constitution could be finalised.
Prior to this, the top court had directed the termination of the mandate of a three-member committee of administrators appointed by it in May last year to manage the affairs of the AIFF.
It had modified its earlier orders to facilitate the revocation of the suspension which was imposed on the AIFF by FIFA and the holding of the Under-17 Women’s World Cup 2022 in India.
On August 16 last year, FIFA had suspended India for “undue influence from third parties” and said the tournament “cannot currently be held in India as planned.” The country, however, later hosted the FIFA event from October 11-30, 2022.
