Navneet’s family takes battle to court

Saurabh Duggal

Chandigarh

THE FAMILY of Navneet Kaur, a victim of alleged sexual harassment by coach A. Edwards at the junior national hockey camp in Lucknow, has taken the issue to the court.

Alleging injustice meted out to his daughter, Navneet’s father, Harbhajan Singh, filed a Civil Writ Petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking a probe into the incident by the sports ministry and inclusion of his daughter in the team for the upcoming Junior Asia Cup at Kuala Lumpur from December 13.

Navneet was thrown out of the camp after she objected vociferously to alleged advances by national goalkeeping coach A Edwards. HT highlighted the case in its November 14 edition.

On Friday, a division bench comprising Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Nawab Singh issued notice of motion, returnable by Nov 27, to six respondents including the Indian Women’s Hockey Federation (IWHF), Sports Authority of India (SAI), the Sports Ministry, chief national coach G.S Bhangu and Edwards.

A promising and upcoming goalkeeper, Navneet was recalled to the camp following SAI intervention but the IWHF did not include her in the squad for the Asia Cup.

In his petition, Navneet’s father asked the HC to direct SAI to depute independent experts to determine whether Navneet is the best goalkeeper in her age group. In case the observers come to such a conclusion, he asked the IWHF be directed to include her in the squad for the Junior Asia Cup.

He alleged that the IWHF announced the squad on November 16 in order to keep his daughter out.

“Generally teams are announced after getting clearance from the Sports Ministry a week before the tournament,” he claimed.

He also claimed that IWHF secretary Amrit Bose threatened his daughter that her career would to brought to an end just like that of former India captain Pritam Siwach if she continued to cause more ‘trouble’ for the federation.