SC’s football order outlines broad vision of India

{'INSTRUMENTS OF UNITY'

- Utkarsh Anand

Sports, the court underscored, bring together people from different castes, classes, religions, and languages.

On September 19, the Supreme Court not only gave Indian football a new lease of life but also set a wider jurisprudential marker on the role of sports in nation-building.

For perhaps the first time, the top court placed sports within the framework of India's Constitution -- as material resources of the community, as institutions of national life, and as vital arenas for nurturing fraternity.

The ruling, delivered by a bench of justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi, went beyond technical questions of football governance to emphasise that sports are not mere pastimes but instruments of unity, equity and dignity.

By finalising the constitution of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), the court hoped to end decades of ad-hocism, inefficiency and politicisation that had hobbled Indian football. But its larger contribution may well be in the vision it articulates: that sports, when democratised and managed with integrity, can be one of the strongest forces binding together a diverse nation.

In a powerful opening to its 78-page judgment authored by Justice Narasimha, the court located the importance of sports in constitutional morality. It held that sporting facilities and opportunities must be understood as "material resources of the community" under Article 39(b), while their organisers qualify as "institutions of national life" under Article 38. Seen this way, sports are not luxuries for the urban elite but resources that must be made accessible to all citizens, it noted.