The rules of the All India Football Federation "are in breach" of the National Sports Code & Model Guidelines, the Delhi High Court said while setting aside the election of Praful Patel as president of the AIFF, according to the PTI. Patel, a former minister of civil aviation & heavy industries, was elected for a four-year term in Dec. '16 along with the exec committee for '17-20, after the High Court had, as an interim measure, "vacated the stay on the polls on the ground that the result could be subject to the final outcome of the issue pending before it." The court appointed former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi as the administrator-cum-returning officer to conduct the fresh polls to the sports body. Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Nazmi Waziri said, "The court is of the view that insofar as the Rules of the AIFF are in breach of the National Sports Code and the Model Guidelines for the conduct of elections, the results of the elections of the AIFF declared on December 21, 2016 would have to be set aside." It further directed that the fresh elections "should be held in accordance with the Model Guidelines" (PTI, 11/6).
