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Vaasvi Khaitan (Minor, through her father Mr. Vedant Khaitan) vs. Ad-Hoc Committee for the Governance of Equestrian Federation of India & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8046Decided 17 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(C) 12760/2026CNR: DLHC010412862026
Dr. Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma

Background

A 16-year-old international show-jumping athlete challenged her ranking (reserve rider no. 2) in India's revised selection for the Youth Olympic Games 2026, arguing that the Selection Committee had retrospectively shrunk the relevant qualifying period from an eight-month window (since November 2025) to just the period from May to July 2026, thereby excluding seven of her eight valid qualifying scores earned before May 2026. She also produced a previously undisclosed set of minutes from May 2026, in which an earlier Selection Committee had actually already picked her as India's representative rider.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found that no document ever fixed November 2025 as the start of the selection window, that date merely marked an earlier qualifying event, and that once the criteria were formally published on the Federation's website in May 2026, it was reasonable for the Committee to assess "recent" results from that date forward, applied equally to all riders. On the May 2026 minutes, the Court accepted that they were genuine but held they reflected only a preliminary recommendation involving just two riders (before all seven eligible athletes' credentials were confirmed), superseded by the later, comprehensive selection process that all riders, including the petitioner, knowingly participated in. Given the imminent Olympic entry deadline, the Court declined to restart the selection process and upheld the final rankings, while separately urging the Federation to publish clearer, more specific selection criteria in future to avoid such disputes.

Lesson Learnt

In sports selection disputes, courts will look at what criteria were actually and formally published to all athletes (not private communications to one athlete) and will hesitate to unravel a selection process at the last minute before an international deadline: federations should nonetheless make their selection windows and criteria explicit from the outset to avoid genuine confusion.

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