By IANS
New Delhi : The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Saturday gave recognition to the Chattar Singh-led Haryana Wrestling Association (HWA) in a dispute between two groups for control of the body, and also involving "misappropriation" of Rs. 12,61,131.
In a statement here, WFI said that its two-member committee looking into the dispute ruled in favour of Singh, ignoring the claims of M.S. Malik, who was claiming that the state association led by him was the real one.
"The general council of the WFI in its meeting held in New Delhi July 28 decided to accord recognition to HWA with Chattar Singh as president and R.K. Hooda as secretary in place of the association led by M.S. Malik," said WFI.
"The meeting took this decision after considering the report of its committee, consisting of the vice-presidents K.S. Minhas and M.P. Tiwari, which was constituted to ascertain facts regarding the dispute in HWA."
WFI at the first meeting of its the newly elected executive committee May 28 had directed the two-member panel to submit its report within two weeks. The panel, however, took almost two months to submit its report.
"The general council took serious notice of mismanagement and misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs.12,61,131 by the previous management," WFI said in the statement.
"This includes non-refund of unutilised grant sanctioned by the ministry of sports, misappropriation of money collected for mats from different units/akharas under the 75:25 sharing basis scheme of the ministry, and misappropriation of the grant received from the ministry for holding of the national cadet wrestling championship at Hardwar in 2002 for which bogus bills/vouchers were submitted."
WFI claimed that because of these irregularities, the government has stopped grants to the federation, "which is seriously affecting coaching and foreign exposures of Indian wrestlers in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games".
"The general council directed the secretary-general, WFI, to initiate appropriate legal proceedings against the persons concerned," it said.
WFI also announced that the Senior National Championship 2007 would be held in Udaipur, Rajasthan, in the last week of November and the Junior National Championship would be staged in Jammu in September.