The Indian sporting ecosystem has been mired in disputes for decades. Therefore, the radical reforms in the National Sports Governance Bill of 2025, comes as a breadth of fresh air, for a gasping sporting ecosystem. The principle objective of this bill itself lays down the importance of resolving sport grievances and disputes in a unified, equitable and effective manner, while providing access to such forums.
Most disputes pertaining to sports emanate from elections and selections. Election disputes being around the electoral college, right of a person to contest or vote, disputes amongst voting units and recognition of voting units. Selection mostly deals with sports persons and their support personnel and concerns right to participate or eligibility, bias in selection, bias in giving benefits and awards. The other disputes which would largely cover the ambit of sporting disputes, would be around integrity issues in sports like manipulation of sport event and safeguarding in sports, which covers issues around sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.
Unlike traditional civil litigation, sporting disputes are time sensitive and require specialized understanding of the administration, the international regulations and decisions. This is critical to sporting disputes, as even domestic disputes need to be resolved as per principles laid down for similar disputes, at the international level. This is because of the pyramid structure of sports, where all powers to govern a sport, flows from the International Olympic Committee and the International Federation of the particular sport.
The recognition of this uniqueness of the sport ecosystem, is reflected in particular in the National Sports Governance Bill 2025, where disputes under the ambit of the International Olympic Committee, International Federation and Court of Arbitration for Sports have been excluded from the jurisdiction of the National Sports Tribunal.
In order to avoid bias, the selection of the members of the National Sports Tribunal has been vested with a selection committee comprising senior members from the Indian judiciary and designated members from the Government of India. The minimum criteria of qualification for the Chairperson and members of the National Sports Tribunal has also been enumerated.
As a legal practitioner, I have observed that the sport disputes are brought to the court for resolution as a matter of urgency. However, the party, who is the beneficiary of such disputes, will always try dilatory tactics to either make the dispute infructuous or to bide time, to make the opposing party lose interest in the dispute. Often conspiracy theories are peddled to scandalize the courts and get favourable orders, when no such conspiracy exists.
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Once interim orders are obtained, the disputes are prolonged so that an effective decision itself becomes inconsequential. Most times the crux of the sport dispute, that is to protect the aggrieved party, gets lost in the legal quagmire. Once the National Sports Tribunal is set-up and starts functioning, it is likely to have its hands full right from inception, as all disputes pertaining to the sporting bodies, including those pending before the civil courts will get transferred to this tribunal.
In time with the expertise and experience available with the members of this tribunal, it is hoped that the sport disputes are resolved with moderate costs, expertly and expeditiously, so that the disputes don’t hamper India’s push towards a sporting power, as India pushes to bid for hosting major games in India.
The role and importance of this National Sports Tribunal to be set-up, under the National Sports Governance Bill cannot be stressed enough. It is hoped that this laudable and important measures sought to be taken by the Government of India through the National Sports Governance Bill 2025, is able to help India realize its sporting ambitions.
(The author is an eminent lawyer, specializing in sports matters)
