Certificates Issued By Indian Body Builders Federation Valid For Recruitment As It Is Recognised By Sports Ministry: Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court held that the Indian Body Builders Federation (IBBF) is a national level body duly recognized by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, and hence the certificates issued by it were recognizable and deserved to be considered for the purpose of recruitment and weightage of marks.

The division bench of Justice Kuldeep Mathur and Justice Baljinder Singh Sandhu further highlighted that if the certificate was not considered since IBBF was not recognized by the Indian Olympic Association (“IOA”), there would be no national level body whose certificate could be held to be valid since there was no other body recognized at the national level by IOA.

The Court was hearing a special appeal filed against the single judge's order upholding the selection of the respondent as Sub-Inspector/Platoon Commander on the post reserved for the sportsperson, based on the certificate issued by the IBBF.

It was the case of the appellant that the IBBF was not a body recognized by the IOA, and hence, it was not a valid certificate. Granting weightage of marks upon the same was not justified, and hence the respondent's selection deserved to be cancelled.

After hearing the contentions, the Court perused the reply by the State which clearly stated that the Selection Board for this recruitment had sought information from the IOA regarding the approved/sanctioned federations and found out that no such bodies were recognized by the IOA.

Further, information was sought from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India which clarified that IBBF was a recognized body for conducting body building tournaments and that the IBBF was also recognized by the All-India Police Sports Control Board.

In this light, the Court highlighted that,

“From a bare perusal of these letters, it can safely be concluded that the Indian Body Builders Federation (IBBF) is a national level federation duly recognized by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India and hence, the certificates issued by it are certainly recognizable and deserve to be considered for the purpose of recruitment and weightage of marks.”

It was held that once a body was recognized by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, there was no reason not to recognize the certificate issued by it or to believe that it was not competent to issue such a certificate.

"Hence, in the present case, once the IBBF is duly recognised by the Government of India itself, there is no reason to believe that it is not a recognised body or is not a competent body to issue the sport certificate," the bench added.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed, holding that no error was committed by the Selection Committee.

Title: Garvit Vyas v State of Rajasthan & Ors.

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 263

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