NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stayed an earlier order by the Delhi High Court, allowing all AIFF elected committees to function on a regular basis, a press release issued by the federation has stated.
This will effectively allow Praful Patel to continue in his role as the president of AIFF.
The AIFF press release issued late Saturday stated that the Supreme Court has reassigned former chief election commissioner of India SY Qureshi, who the High Court had given the mandate to administer the AIFF pending fresh elections to be conducted within five months, to the role of formulating the AIFF constitution afresh within eight weeks.
The apex court additionally named former India football captain Bhaskar Ganguly as Ombudsman in the exercise.
The Supreme Court’s directive was in response to an appeal filed by the AIFF challenging a Delhi High Court order that had set aside the election of Patel, who was last December elected as president to a third successive a four-year term.
The court set aside the elections ruling they were held in contravention of the National Sports Code.
As Quraishi told ESPN: “The two of us (him and Ganguly) will look at the existing constitution. The federation has been saying they adopted some of the things of the sports code. So we will see how much is the ‘some’. It has to be totally in conformity. The entire federation is expected to help us. They will show us what it is they have adopted. They will have to show what is missing so those gaps are bridged and the revised constitution is drafted. We will give our draft proposal in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court within two months.”
