HC stay on conferring Dronacharya award on Vinod Kumar
New Delhi, August 29: A division bench of the Delhi High Court Saturday stayed a single-judge order directing the Centre to confer a Dronacharya award on former chief national wrestling coach Vinod Kumar.
A division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath, at a special sitting, stayed Friday’s order that had asked the Central government to confer the award on Kumar. It, however, gave a green signal to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to go ahead with the function to confer the prestigious award on the other coach Anup Singh.
The awards were to be presented at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Saturday evening. The division bench’s order came on an appeal by the Centre against Friday’s decision.
Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain told IANS: ‘‘The division bench of the High Court stayed the single judge’s order. The bench said the single-judge order was passed without hearing the case fully.’’
‘‘Awards are scheduled for Saturday evening. We (Centre) got the order Friday evening; so we mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice bench in the morning,’’ he added.
Kumar earlier moved the high court against the Dronacharya award selection committee for ignoring him for the prestigious honour. Vinod Kumar, who was the chief national men’s team coach from November 2010 to April 2015, had claimed that he had earned more points for his achievements of his wards at international tournaments than Anoop.
He said he had the highest points amongst all nominees and better qualification for getting the award. Kumar was conferred the Dhyan Chand award in 2012. Agencies
