Srinagar: PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Friday hit out at the Jammu and Kashmir administration over bureaucratic hurdles faced by international water sports coach Bilquis Mir, saying that having to fight in the Supreme Court to represent the country “exposes the rot in the system”.
The comments of the former chief minister came a day after the apex court set aside a Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court order and directed the Union territory’s administration to issue a no-objection certificate (NOC) and a relieving order to Mir on or before September 15 to travel abroad.
The ruling paved the way for Mir, a physical education teacher in the J&K Youth Services Department, to join the Indian National Kayaking and Canoeing Team as the chief coach for the Asian Games in Japan beginning September 19.
“When a sports icon like Bilquis Mir, who broke barriers for women in water sports, is forced to fight in the Supreme Court just to represent India, it exposes the rot in the system here,” Mehbooba Mufti said in a post on X.
She said an internationally acclaimed sportsperson should have received full institutional backing instead of being met with bureaucratic hurdles and obstruction.
“If a legend needs a judicial order to compete, what about the countless young athletes who don’t have the means, influence or resources to fight the bureaucracy? Sporting slogans ring hollow,” the PDP chief added.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi had allowed the appeal filed by the Indian Kayaking and Canoeing Association and Mir against the high court’s August 11 order.
The high court order had said that Mir continued to be a government employee and that merely because she had been selected by the Kayaking Association for a national sporting assignment, no enforceable right arose to compel the employer to issue an NOC, relieving order or foreign travel permission.
The top court also quashed the J&K government’s June 19 order denying Mir permission to travel, citing pending departmental inquiries and service conditions, and said that sports administration operates on strict timelines that cannot await ordinary administrative processes.
Mir, who was selected by the association in February to prepare the national team, had earlier missed an international assignment in Hungary due to procedural delays.
The top court’s decision came weeks after it dismissed a separate petition by the J&K administration challenging the quashing of an Anti-Corruption Bureau FIR against Mir, who also served as India’s first female judge for kayaking and canoeing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.