Archery Association of India appoints acting president to begin election process
The Archery Association of India has opted to name senior vice president Sunil Sharma as its acting president in order to begin the election process as per Supreme Court's order. Sharma added that the AA was in the process of searching an experienced Returning Officer to conduct elections.
On Saturday, the Archery Association of India appointed its senior vice president Sunil Sharma as the acting president to begin the process of holding official elections. This came after the Supreme Court passed an order last year which nullified the national body's election. The SC had declared earlier that the elections held in December and were monitored by high court-appointed administrator SY Quraishi will be termed as "null and void". SC further ordered fresh polling for the national body within a time period of four weeks.
In the wake of the SC order and subsequent resignation of BVP Rao, president of the archery governing body, the AAI on Saturday convened an emergent Executive Committee, which appointed Sharma as its acting president.
"The Executive Committee unanimously appointed Sunil Sharma as acting president of AAI being the senior vice president of the association in accordance with Article 24 of AAI Constitution (as approved by the Supreme Court on 4th December, 2017)," the AAI said in a release.
Sharma, who is also the vice-president of Jammu and Kashmir Archery Association, later declared that the AAI was in the process of searching an experienced Returning Officer to conduct elections as per the court’s order.
"It has also brought to the notice of the Executive Committee that acting president shall as per Article 17 of the constitution appoint the returning officer for conducting elections of AAI office bearers. The name of the Returning Officer will be announced soon," it added.
Earlier, the Apex Court had directed AAI to amend its constitution in accordance with the 2011 National Sports Development Code (NSDC) back in 2017. In addition to that, It had also requested the High Court-appointed SY Quraishi to oversee the elections in accordance with the amended constitution. However, in November last year, the court refused to interfere with the then ongoing election process but revealed that its result would be subject to the outcome of the petition challenging the entire process.
