NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Centre, state governments and Union Territories on a PIL seeking directions to make sports a part of the Fundamental Rights as well as promotion of sports education in the country.
A Bench of Justices S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao gave the government a four-week deadline to provide a reply to a petition filed by law student Kanishka Pandey of the NGO ‘Sports: A Way of Life’, represented by advocates Siddharth Dave and Rajiv Kumar Dubey.
The petition submitted that sports should be made a fundamental right under Article 21A (right to education).
The petition asked the court to direct the government to bring in laws to promote sports, incorporating it into the Directives Principles and fundamental duties of the Constitution, and make it an integral part of the curriculum in schools.
“Sports should be included in the curriculum from nursery to secondary level and education with sports subject should be imparted to the child from the very beginning of education. Children’s talent and sports aptitude should be tested from the elementary school days itself so that the talent of a child can be improved and developed through training and education,” the PIL argues.
There should be a compulsory provision for sports in the school budget which should be utilised for sports activity only. Also, there should be one post of sports secretary in students unions, it added.
“Issue direction to constitute a high level committee of parliamentarians, academicians and sports persons to make appropriate suggestions to amendment in the Constitution of India to include sports as a Fundamental Right in Part III, especially in Article 21A of the Constitution of India,” stated the plea.
The Bench issued notice to the state governments, University Grants Commission, Union Human Resource Development Ministry, Sports and Youth Affairs Department, Ministry of Finance, and Sports Authority of India.
