New Delhi, Jan 22 (IANS): The sports ministry on Wednesday de-recognised the Rowing Federation of India for violating the 2011 National Sports Code. The ministry in a letter to the RFI President stated as much and in another letter to the Indian Olympic Association directed it to constitute an ad hoc committee for discharging the functions of the RFI.

Rajlaxmi Singh Deo and MV Sriram were elected president and secretary-general respectively of the RFI in the elections that were conducted on December 6. "Upon examination of the matter (from the reports of the Returning Officer and government observer), it has been found that the said elections of the RFI are not in accordance with the Model Election Guidelines prescribed in the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011," the ministry said in its letter.

The ministry cited four areas in which it found violations. The first was that only 18 state or union territory units participated in the election and that the "RFI does not fulfil the 2/3 state/UT affiliation criteria as it must have had at least 25 state/UT as its affiliated members."

The RFI allowed proxy voting for which the ministry stated there are no provisions in the sports code. The third issue it raised was that the RFI allowed three votes per state unit or union territory as opposed to two.

The last point raised by the ministry was that Sriram had held the post of Secretary-General for two terms till January 2016 and hence as per the cooling-off provision of the NSDCI (Sports Code), 2011, "he would have been eligible to contest elections only after 29.01.2020 (after the completion of a cooling-off period of four years)."