Admissions under sports category: Panjab University asks students to provide details of clubs

Deepankar Sharda

Chandigarh, June 28

In an astonishing step, the Panjab University authorities have questioned the credibility of the sports certificates, especially those of team games, submitted by students for getting admission in the university under the sports quota.

Claims by scrutiny team

Nerve-wracking claims have been made by the university’s sports certificate scrutiny team, wherein it has been found that various clubs (teams) from where players have participated in state championships and claimed either of the first three positions are not registered (under societies act) with their respective association.

In one such discrepancy list, released on Wednesday, for admission under the sports category for the UIET, Dr SSBUICET and UIET PUSSGRC (Hoshiarpur), the authorities have asked for submission of copy of registration certificate of club concerned with complete detail of office-bearers, their names, address and email; number of clubs registered with association for session 2021-22, 2022-23 with their complete detail of office-bearers, their names, address and email; affiliation certificate of the association, UT Sports Department and national federation concerned; and affiliation of the National Federation with the Ministry of Sports from some students.

Nerve-wracking claims have been made by the university’s sports certificate scrutiny team, wherein it has been found that various clubs (teams) from where players have participated in state championships and claimed either of the first three positions are not registered (under societies act) with their respective association.

The clubs have also been formed without taking proper consent from the authorities, and even school players are allowed to play in the clubs. In one such case, a school player has been caught representing the Panjab University Campus Club team in a state championship, whereas no such permission was given to form a club or allow school students in campus club team, claimed officials seeking anonymity.

Taking a strong action against this, the authorities have asked the players to submit their respective documents and have also written to the UT Sports Department to provide a list of affiliated and registered clubs with various sports associations.

“This happened last year also when an association of water sports declared two winners of one event by issuing different certificates. The guilty were caught after a minor discrepancy was found in the name of the association mentioned on the certificates,” said an official, investigating this matter.

“This time, we have observed that some clubs have been formed just before the championship. Whereas, a club should be active for at least two years by the virtue of participating in event. No information about their registration or office-bearers is available. As per the sports code, the associations should have their website citing all the details, name of clubs, their registration and other details. We are unable to find anything. We have already written to the UT Sports Department as the state associations report to them from providing registration numbers of the association and registration numbers of their clubs. We have written to the Indian Olympic Association and the Chandigarh Olympic Association and even to the Ministry. We have caught school students representing university clubs and few representing some other schools in state championship. We have received another case wherein a player of indigenous martial arts event is residing in Punjab, but played state championship from Chandigarh,” claimed the official.