AIBA asked Muralidharan Raja not to call meeting: Indian Boxing Federation

The wrangling within the Indian Boxing Federation continued with the IBF stating that the world body AIBA had "categorically" instructed vice-president, Brigadier Muralidharan Raja, to stay away from calling any meeting on his own.

The development comes after Raja, a former secretary general of the federation, was served a showcause for calling a meeting of various state boxing units and associations.

Raja was quoted in the media as saying "state units have unanimously decided to meet on October 6 and the idea is to form an ad-hoc body which will take over the proceedings of the meeting".

The IBF then landed a counter-punch.

"...In fact even AIBA the world body for boxing has written to Brig Raja and categorically asked him to not to organise any such meeting. Furthermore they have mentioned, in their letter dated 25 Sep 2013, that the said meeting is not sanctioned by AIBA as well," the IBF said in a statement.

The IBF sought to inform about the stance taken by the Indian boxing body relating to Raja and said AIBA also agreed with them.

"First and foremost as per the IBF constitution, Brig Raja, as Vice President of the Indian Boxing Federation does not have the proper authority to call a General House meeting and to discuss the amendments of IBF Constitution, form an adhoc committee to finalise date of AGM and set a date for election of IBF office bearers (agenda as stipulated by him).

"The IBF Constitution does have the provision to convene a General House meeting on the request of any member or a collective few, if they follow proper procedure and approach the Federation first, which obviously was not done in this case," it added in the statement. Since the Indian boxing body's provisional suspension, the IBF said it has been "tirelessly" working to reslove the matter.

"Since the day of the provisional suspension, the Federation has been working tirelessly to make sure the matter is resolved. Our first priority was to ensure that our athletes do not miss on any competitive and training opportunities during the interim period."

The IBF also mentioned about the sub-committee that was formed last December.

"On 29 Dec 2012 a sub-committee was formed with the sole purpose of dealing with the issues pertaining to the provisional suspension, with Brig Raja being one of the members of the committee. Since its formation the committee has also been engaged in imbibing the changes suggested by AIBA in our constitution, with Brig Raja being involved in its meetings.

"After receiving comments from AIBA Legal Department the latest version of the constitution was sent back to them. Once the approved constitution is received from AIBA, it will be put forth in an Annual General Meeting for the approval of the house, for which the proposed date is 27 Oct 2013."

The federation further mentioned that the Indian boxing team has recently got the approval from AIBA for two tournaments "namely the 34th Tammer International Boxing Tournament at Tampere, Finland from Oct. 21-27, 2013 and the A Agalarov Cup at Baku, Azerbaijan from December 04-09,2013".

"Our Senior Men's team will leave on 11 Sep 2013 for the AIBA World Boxing Championship scheduled to be held at Almaty, Kazakhstan."