Delhi HC Finds National Coach Guilty of ‘Match-fixing’, Suspends TTFI Executive Committee for Six Months

The Delhi High Court has suspended the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) Executive Committee for six months, with an administrator to be appointed in a week, and also found that national coach Soumyadeep Roy indulged in match-fixing during the Olympic qualifiers in March.

India’s star paddler Manika Batra had filed a case in September last year, accusing Roy of asking her to lose a match so that his student Sitirtha Mukherjee qualifies for the Summer Games. At Tokyo Olympics, the world number 56 had refused to be coached by Roy, saying she would not have been able to focus on her match if someone who asked to her indulge in match-fixing months earlier was sitting by her side.

Manika Batra, in a show-cause notice from TTFI, had denied that she brought disrepute to the game by refusing Roy’s help after she refused his help in the singles competition of the Tokyo Games.