New Delhi, Feb 3 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has upheld the Centre’s decision to recognise the Indian Pickleball Association as a national federation of the sport.
Dismissing a petition by the All India Pickleball Association (AIPA), challenging the decision of the Union Sports Ministry, Justice Sachin Datta said the court was not inclined to interfere with the call taken by the domain expert.
In the judgment passed on February 2, the judge stated that it was not within the province of the court to sit in appeal in such matters.
In the present case, it could not be said that the grant of the recognition to the Indian Pickleball Association was ex facie arbitrary or suffered from manifest unreasonableness, Justice Dutta said.
“In the circumstances, this court finds no merit in the present petition; the same is, accordingly, dismissed,” the court concluded.
The Indian Pickleball Association (IPA) was given the recognition on April 25, 2025, making it eligible for financial grants from the Sports Ministry and autonomy to regulate, promote and develop the sport nationally.
In its petition, AIPA alleged that while it has been in existence since 2008 and actively promoting and developing the sport in India, the Sports Ministry granted recognition to a 138-day-old organisation in violation of the Sports Code.
The Sports Ministry exempted IPA from the conditions of having a “prior existence of three years at the time of applying for recognition” and having “50 per cent district units affiliated with the state/UT units”.
The court rejected AIPA’s contentions, saying there was nothing remiss in the provisions of the Sports Code which enabled the ministry to grant relaxation in certain situations.
The high court observed that the Sports Code was non-statutory in nature and could not be construed to be “rigid or incapable of incorporating exemptions”, especially in the case of emerging sports such as pickleball.
“Nascent/ emerging sports such as pickleball cannot be treated on par with legacy/established sports,” said the court, as it held that it would be “incongruous” to insist on the application of all provisions of the Sports Code to such a sport.
“No doubt, some of the core provisions of the Sports Code, which are basic to good governance, such as provisions related to holding of elections, transparency of accounts, age or tenure restrictions, are necessarily mandatory and uniformly binding on all associations.
“Yet, it cannot be lost sight of the fact that there are many other provisions of the Sports Code which are required to be applied in the context of a particular sport and with due sensitivity to the developmental stage of the sport concerned,” it said.
IPA was exempted from certain conditions under the Sports Code after duly considering the “emerging and nascent nature of the sport as well as the need and desire for promoting and developing the sport of pickleball in the country”, the court stated.
It also noted that review of recognition as a national sports federation was automatically built into the architecture of the Sports Code. PTI ADS NSD NSD
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