Panaji: The Delhi high court on Wednesday appointed Justice (retd) Rekha Palli as chairperson of All India Football Federation’s ethics and disputes resolution committee after Churchill Brothers FC sought an independent, neutral and impartial committee to probe their conflict-of-interest complaints against Inter Kashi FC and president Kalyan Chaubey.Churchill had objected to RK Pachnanda’s position as the ethics committee chairperson, pointing at his previous role as AIFF’s integrity officer. The Delhi HC directed him to recuse himself. Another member, Sudarshan Agarwal, later resigned after the club said he had acted as the personal legal counsel of the AIFF president and had issued a formal legal notice on his behalf.Besides having Justice (retd) Rekha Palli as chairperson, the Delhi high court also appointed Akshay Makhija as member of the ethics committee, while retired judge Ashok Tripathi, who was deputy chairperson of the earlier panel, was retained as member. Two additional members are to be appointed based on joint consultation of the three reconstituted members.AIFF argued that any judicial order appointing members of the ethics committee would amount to third-party interference and possible violation of FIFA Regulations. The court, however, ruled that an independent panel is a must to probe the complaints.“For Churchill Brothers, a club that has carried the flag of Goan and Indian football with pride since its establishment in 1988, this order is not merely a legal victory. It is a vindication of the principle that no institution, however powerful, can deny a legitimate party its right to a fair, independent, and impartial hearing,” the club said in a statement on Wednesday.Churchill submitted before the court that the ethics committee members were appointed without eligibility verification and had been “unilaterally constituted by the AIFF president alone, without any scrutiny by the secretariat, any recommendation by the executive committee, or approval by the general body.”Senior advocate Ravi Prakash said the genesis of Churchill’s complaint pertained to allegations of favouritism and regulatory misconduct by AIFF itself in relation to Inter Kashi.The two-time national league champions are locked in an acrimonious battle with Inter Kashi over last season’s I-League title. The Goan club has called for suspension/revocation of the Varanasi-based club’s entry in the I-League under the AIFF’s Request for Proposal (RFP).The complaint states that although Inter Kashi got entry in the I-League under the Tier-II city category by declaring its home ground in Varanasi, it played all its matches in 2023-24 and 2024-25 (except one), at Kalyani Stadium, a tier-1 city, and in “breach of its terms and commitments under the RFP.”Churchill have also flagged potential conflict of interest concerning Chaubey and asked the ethics panel to determine whether his candidature “for the office of AIFF president complies with conflict of interest provisions and governance principles.”
