After High Court intervention, Class 11 boy to join national skating meet

Justice B Rajendran gave the direction while passing orders on a petition from the skater Jenil’s father S Arul. Jenil is a class 11 student from Chennai. Arul had submitted that his son, an Inline Speed Skater, on qualifying at the district level had participated in the 26th Tamil Nadu Roller Skating Championship 2016 held at Chennai. He came first in two events viz Rink VI (1000 m) and Point to Point and won two gold medals with 10 points and for coming second in Road Elimination (21 km), he won a silver medal with 3 points. 

However, in the Elimination (20 km) race, there were only 3 skaters. But when the race was about to end with his son in the lead, the same was declared cancelled by the Tamil Nadu Roller Skating Association (TNRSA). But since the parents including him objected to the same, a misunderstanding arose between the parents and the officials. He further noted that despite not being declared first in the said race, his son was given medals and certificates for only two races and the medals and certificates for the other two races Elimination (20 km) and Road Elimination (21 km) won by him were withheld. 

However, even by excluding the medals/points in respect of the cancelled event, with 2 gold medals and 1 silver he had garnered 13 points, placing him in the second place among the four who were eligible to participate in the National championship events. But, failure of TNRSA in offering the medals and certificates for the two events had rendered him ineligible to participate in the national championship as RSFI will insist on his winning certificates, he submitted. 

Justice Rajendran while directing RSFI to permit Jenil to participate, sought the organisation consider him as the fifth candidate from Tamil Nadu along with the four others already selected. The judge also directed TNRSA to confirm to RSFI about Jenil’s eligibility to participate in the championship in all the four events as he has obtained 13 points in the selection process.