IHF holds meeting, to pursue unification with IWHF

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), headed by K. P. S. Gill, held a Special General Body meeting here on Sunday and decided to form a five-member committee to hold talks with the Indian Women’s Hockey Federation (IWHF) in order to constitute a unified body.

The officiating Secretary of the federation, Charanjit Singh Raheja, claimed that 30 State units, out of 36, had attended the meeting.

Unification

He said that the IWHF had convened a meeting here on June 12 and after that the panel set up on Sunday would take up the matter of unification with the women’s federation.

Incidentally, Hockey India that came into existence in May, 2009, has also convened a Special General Body meeting here on June 14 to consider ratification of affiliations granted to several State units, among other agenda items.

At Sunday’s IHF meeting, attended by a Government observer (Under Secretary Shankar Lal), Gill explained the position following the Delhi High Court order dated May 21 in which the court quashed the disaffiliation of the IHF by the Indian Olympic Association and de-recognition of the body by the Union Sports Ministry.

The composition of the panel to negotiate with the IWHF remained uncertain at the end of the meeting. Gill and Raheja would certainly be there in the panel.

The panel is expected to work out the modalities of merger with the IWHF, prepare an electoral college and then work towards holding elections to a unified body.

Such a body, though it existed on paper between 2000 and 2009, in the name of Indian Hockey Confederation (IHC), could not hold elections or a meeting.

A ruse

The unification remained a ruse to meet the demand of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) that there be a unified body. The IHF and the IWF continued as two separate entities. Both were disaffiliated by the IOA in March, 2009 as per the claim made by the IOA in the Delhi High Court.

The Union Sports Ministry, which had de-recognised the IHF in August, 2009, had written to the FIH in July the same year to state: “With regard to the IWHF, the Government stopped dealing with them from March, 2009 because the tenure of the elected management had expired.”

The court quashed the disaffiliation of the IHF by the IOA and its de-recognition by the ministry, though there was no order related to the IWHF since the petition filed by the IHF challenged only its disaffiliation and de-recognition. The IOA claimed in submissions before the court that a show cause notice was issued to the IWHF in January, 2009, before it was disaffiliated.

Legal status

What could be the legal status of the IWHF with whom the IHF is now starting a fresh dialogue? Will the ministry be forced to revive, even if temporarily, the IWHF in order to pave the way for yet another merger?

The former President of the IWHF, Vidya Stokes, is now the President of Hockey India. The IWHF Secretary, Amrit Bose, will be the central figure in the fresh ‘dialogue’ as and when that materialises.

HI Secretary Narinder Batra has stated that the IHC was disaffiliated by the FIH in 2008 and his body had taken over the role of the combined federation in 2009.

The meeting on Sunday also decided to hold the National championship in Bhopal in July, the under-20 National in Haryana in August, the under-17 National in Hyderabad in September and the under-14 National in Jaipur in November.