New Delhi: An application alleging financial mismanagement and functioning of the All-India Football Federation (AIFF), the governing body of the sport in the country, has been filed in the Supreme Court.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who is assisting the top court to frame a constitution for the working of AIFF, has moved the application in which he has sought an appropriate forensic audit to examine the finances of the federation under the present interim body.
He has also asked for the appointment of a retired judge of the top court to inquire into the “mismanagement and functioning” of the AIFF under the current regime.
Besides charging the interim body of “serious mismanagement,” the application claims there is lack of transparency and procedural impropriety in the functioning of AIFF.
The interim body took over the AIFF following elections to select the Executive Committee of the federation. This was done following the top court’s 3 August, 2022 orders, which allowed the elections to be held as an interim measure.
The court issued the directions amidst a hearing it was conducting to prepare a draft constitution. In May 2022, it appointed a Committee of Administrators (COA) for the purpose of drafting and facilitating the adoption of a new constitution for AIFF.
COA submitted this draft constitution to the court in July 2022 to which objections were filed by various parties.
In May 2023, the top court asked former SC judge L.N. Rao to finalise the draft constitution as proposed by the COA, after hearing objections of all the parties. Rao gave his report on 11 September, following which the SC gave another three weeks to the parties for submitting their objections.
According to Sankanarayanan’s application, the interim arrangement made by the court was without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the parties and was to continue for three months or till the constitution for AIFF is finalised.
The court, it said, had restrained the interim body from claiming any equities on the basis of its order.
However, as per the application, the current AIFF management despite being an interim body has gone well beyond its mandate.
It pointed to a letter written in January 2024 by the President of Goa Football Association to the interim AIFF president questioning the failure to organise an Annual General Body Meeting (AGM) since December, 2023. The letter also raises a question about the approval process of audited accounts without any AGM being conducted.
To further substantiate the assertion of mismanagement, the application cites letters written by AIFF’s former nodal legal officer, Nilanjan Bhattacharjee, whose services were subsequently terminated, a move said to be “retaliatory” on behalf of the interim AIFF president.
Bhattacharjee’s emails pointed out irregularities in an agreement signed between AIFF and IndiGo Airlines, which in his view, were not vetted by the legal department of the federation. The application alleges that he was pressured to give his consent to the agreement, even though in his view communicated to the AIFF president the terms should have been renegotiated.
Bhattacharjee had noted irregularities in the production of I-League matches and had suggested measures to improve the tendering process that too were disapproved by the interim president, the application said.
Besides making allegations of unauthorised credit card expenditures and office renovation linked to the interim president’s office in Kolkata, the application speaks of India’s withdrawal of its hosting bid of the 2027 Asia Football Club.
According to the application, this was done while ignoring the pre-bidding expense of Rs 72 lakh and despite having a reasonable chance of India winning the right to host the prestigious tournament.
It also refers to a pending litigation in the Delhi High Court where the AIFF general secretary has challenged his termination by the interim president. The HC stayed his termination on a prima facie opinion that the termination was contrary to the procedure laid down.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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