Praful Patel's term as president of the AIFF comes to an end

"The CoA is now reformed to comprise of the following members-Justice (retd) Anil R Dave, Dr. SY Qureshi, former Chief Election Commissioner, and Bhaskar Ganguly, former captain of the Indian Football Team," stated a bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and PS Narasimha. The executive committee elections, which were held on December 21, 2016, were ruled invalid by the Delhi High Court on October 31, 2017, according to the bench's judgment. The execution of the challenged High Court judgment, including the orders granted in the decision, was stayed while the pendency of these actions before the highest court, according to an interim ruling of November 10, 2017.

"The consequence of the order of the stay is that though the normal tenure of the elected body would in any event would come to an end on December 20, 2020, following the expiry of its four-year term, the body has continued to govern the affairs of the AIFF despite the expiry of its term. Such a state of affairs is imminently not in the interest of the proper governance of the All India Football Federation", it said. The bench said, "hence we are of the view that the two-member committee of administrators which has been appointed by the order of this court dated November 10, 2017, with a specific mandate as noted in the order is expanded and the mandate of the committee is similarly broadened".

It added, "the committee shall carry out day-to-day governance of the affairs of the AIFF and in discharging its task, the committee would be at liberty to take the assistance of the erstwhile committee of AIFF which had continued in office till the date of this order in order to facilitate proper decision being taken inter alia on the holding of tournaments, selection of players and all other ancillary matters necessary for the governance of the federation". The previous committee, which will be replaced by the conditions of the current ruling, will pass over the charge to the CoA, according to the bench. It was stressed that these are pro-tem procedures to assist the staging of elections and the handover of power to a democratically elected body in accordance with the constitution that will be enacted.

On May 12, the Supreme Court consented to hear the Delhi Football Club's complaint claiming the unconstitutional continuance of a committee and Praful Patel's presidency of the AIFF for more than a decade. The Sports Ministry had previously filed an application in the Supreme Court claiming that Patel does not have a mandate to remain as AIFF president after serving three terms and that the national organisation should hold elections immediately. Patel served as AIFF president for three terms and 12 years, the maximum allowed by the Sports Code for a national sports organisation (NSF) president. The AIFF, on the other hand, did not hold elections because to a pending Supreme Court appeal about its constitution.