Arjuna Awards: Delhi HC refuses to stay ceremony, seeks response on plea moved by gold medalist athlete
Nov 29, 2022
New Delhi [India], November 29 : The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to stay the Arjuna Award ceremony over the non-inclusion of Gold medalist athlete Manjeet Singh in the list of awardees.
The petitioner has moved a petition seeking a direction to include his name in the list of the athletes to be awarded this year. The National Award ceremony is going to be held on Wednesday in the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Justice Prathiba M Singh issued a notice seeking a response of the Sports Authority of India and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on the petition moved by Manjeet Singh, a Gold Medalist in the 800-metre category of Asian Games 2018. However, the court refused to stay the ceremony.
Justice Singh said, "I am not going to stop the award function which is to take place tomorrow."
Manjeet Singh has moved a petition by advocates Arun Khatri and Akshay Rana seeking a direction to authorities to consider his name and confer on him the Arjuna Award for outstanding performance in Sport and Games (2022) being a gold medal winner at Asian Games at Jakarta.
The counsel for central government Anil Soni informed the Court that the awardee list was announced on November 14 and the ceremony is scheduled on Wednesday.
The Counsel for the petitioner submitted before the court that the if the award is not conferred on him this year, he will become ineligible next year as per the scheme. He has been nominated for the last 4 years by the federation but has not been awarded.
The bench said, "The award function cannot be interdicted at this stage before 24 hours." The court said, if after filing of the replies by the respondents, the court is of the opinion that the petitioner's case needs to be considered, it will see if relaxation is required in the scheme.
It has been submitted that the petitioner won the gold medal and has the highest 30 points as per the point system. Still, his name has not been included in th list. The athlete who won a silver medal and has only 25 points, his name is on the list.
It is also said that all the other athletes other than the petitioner who won five gold medals in the Asian Games have been conferred the Award.
