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Indian table tennis players Manush Shah and Swastika Ghosh’s writ petitions challenging their exclusion from the country’s Commonwealth Games squad were on Monday dismissed by Delhi High Court. Shah and Ghosh had approached the court after the Committee of Administrators (CoA), running the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), had excluded them from the final CWG squad announced earlier this month. “I was told by our lawyer that our case has been dismissed,” Manush’s father Utpal told PTI.
The selectors did not include Manush in the men’s team although he was in the top-four as per the criteria set by the CoA. The men’s squad included veteran Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai, Sanil Shetty, with Manush on standby.
Swastika, 19, was named as a standby with the revised women’s squad comprising Manika Batra, Chitale, Reeth Rishya and Sreeja Akula.
Archana Kamath, the second highest-ranked Indian player at 66th after Manika Batra (39th), too had moved the court after being dropped from the Indian team for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Her case is coming up for hearing on June 22 at Karnataka High Court.
Archana was initially included in the squad as an ‘exception’ as she did not meet the selection criteria laid down by TTFI, but was suddenly dropped by the CoA and Diya Chitale was brought in her place.
Promoted
Interestingly, Chitale also had moved the court after being initially excluded from the squad.
The CWG is scheduled to be held in Birmingham from July 28 to August 8.
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