Delhi High Court Clears Vinesh Phogat to Compete in Asian Games Selection Trials

Division Bench overturns Single Judge order, rules that motherhood cannot be treated as a professional disability for female athletes

The Delhi High Court yesterday delivered a landmark ruling in favour of Olympic wrestler Vinesh Phogat, directing the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) to allow her to participate in the Asian Games 2026 selection trials scheduled for May 30 and 31, 2026.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia allowed Phogat’s Letters Patent Appeal (LPA 399/2026), overturning an earlier order by a Single Judge that had declined to grant any interim relief to the decorated wrestler. The court disposed of the appeal with immediate directions protecting her right to compete.

What the case was about

Phogat had challenged the WFI’s Asian Games Selection Policy dated February 25, 2026, and a subsequent Circular dated May 6, 2026, which restricted eligibility for the selection trials exclusively to medal winners of specified domestic championships held in 2025 and 2026. Since Phogat had taken a formally disclosed maternity sabbatical throughout 2025 — giving birth to her first child in July of that year — she was unable to participate in any of those qualifying events and was therefore locked out of the trials entirely.

The court found this situation deeply troubling. It observed that Phogat’s exclusion was “directly attributable to the sabbatical and temporary retirement from her sporting activities,” and that the timing of her maternity and recovery had coincided precisely with the championships used as eligibility benchmarks under the Policy and Circular.

The court’s reasoning

In emphatic terms, the bench declared that “becoming a mother can never become a disability,” and that any legal or regulatory framework that disadvantages a woman on account of pregnancy or post-partum recovery would violate Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The judges acknowledged the “extraordinary physical challenges” female athletes face through pregnancy and the post-partum period, challenges they said were “often insufficiently acknowledged within institutional sporting frameworks.”

The court also noted that Phogat had followed all prescribed procedures throughout her absence. She had formally notified the International Testing Agency (ITA) of her sabbatical in December 2024, kept the ITA, United World Wrestling (UWW), and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) informed at every stage, and received written confirmation in July 2025 that she would be eligible to compete from January 1, 2026 onwards.

Crucially, the bench found that the WFI’s eligibility framework marked a significant departure from its own past practice, noting that earlier guidelines issued by the federation on April 29, 2025 expressly preserved discretion to grant special permission to iconic players to participate in trials.

The Show Cause Notice

The court was equally critical of a Show Cause Notice (SCN) issued by WFI on May 9, 2026, which had rendered Phogat ineligible from participating in any WFI events until June 26, 2026. The notice had raised the Paris Olympics 2024 weigh-in incident — in which Phogat had been disqualified from the final of the 50 kg category after failing a second weigh-in — and described it as a “national embarrassment.”

The bench rejected this characterisation in unsparing language, calling such observations “deplorable,” “retrograde,” and evidence of “mala fide intent” on the part of WFI. The court pointed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s own award dated August 16, 2024, which had clearly recorded that there was “no suggestion of any wrongdoing” on Phogat’s part. The judges said the SCN appeared to be “pre-mediated” and was improperly reopening issues already conclusively resolved before the CAS.

Directions issued

The court issued three specific directions in disposing of the appeal. Phogat must be permitted to participate in the Asian Games 2026 selection trials on May 30 and 31. The trials must be video-recorded by WFI. And the Union of India, through the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, must nominate two independent observers — one each from the SAI and the Indian Olympic Association — to observe the trials and submit a report to the Single Judge hearing the pending writ petition.

The bench was careful to clarify that it had not ruled on the merits of the underlying writ petition, and that all parties remain free to raise their full arguments before the Single Judge when the matter is heard on July 6, 2026.

Background

Phogat is one of India’s most decorated wrestlers, having won bronze medals at the 2019 and 2022 World Wrestling Championships, gold medals at the 2014, 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games, and gold and bronze medals at the 2018 and 2014 Asian Games respectively. She reached the final of the women’s 50 kg freestyle event at the Paris Olympics before her disqualification on weigh-in grounds.