Court paves way for Hockey India polls

The Rajasthan High Court has vacated the stay on the Hockey India’s (HI) affiliation process, clearing a major hurdle for elections.

“The High Court has vacated the stay on the operation of the minutes of the meeting dated Jan. 11. Thus the affiliation given to 30 state units and four associate members has been cleared and is in operation now,”

Hockey India (HI) secretary Narinder Batra told HT from New Delhi.

The only other issue remaining is that of Maharashtra where three member units of the Indian Hockey Federation — Maharashtra, Mumbai and Vidarbha — are claimants. HI has promised the Bombay High Court that it will consider

all affiliation applications before conducting elections. Batra said he will visit Mumbai soon and call all stakeholders for a meeting.

Asked whether more roadblocks need to be cleared before the announcement of the election dates, Batra said he isn’t aware of any other court cases.

“With the vacation of stay by the Rajasthan HC, the minutes of the Jan. 11 meeting come into operation.

“So, we now have 30 state and four associate units in place, we need to tackle only Maharashtra and then we can have elections,” he said.

Batra said all parties should take part in the elections. “The elections will be held via secret ballot with a retired HC judge as the returning officer.”