By Venkatachari Jagannathan
Chennai, Dec 30 (IANS) Indian sports closes 2019 in a grand manner with women’s world number three in chess Grand Master (GM) Koneru Humpy winning the Women’s World Rapid Champion title in Russia a couple of days ago.
Humpy’s win is notable as she is the second Indian to win the title after former World Champion GM V. Anand who won the title in 2017 in the men’s category.
It will be shocking to note that not long ago the All India Chess Federation (AICF) wanted FIDE – the global chess body – to punish Humpy.
It happened in 2015 after Humpy decided to withdraw from the Commonwealth Chess Championship held in Delhi after her appeal was turned down.
Earlier Humpy was declared lost on time in her fourth round game.
According to Humpy the tournament arbiter did not clearly announce the rules relating to time control which resulted in her losing the fourth round and she withdrew from the tournament citing this as the reason.
Not only Humpy, in the first round of the championship International Master (IM) Tania Sachdev too was declared lost on time.
The AICF then forwarded a complaint from the Delhi Chess Association (DCA) to FIDE seeking appropriate action against Humpy for violating its rules; withdrawing from the tournament without a valid reason and making unjustified accusations against the Chief Arbiter.
Fortunately for Humpy, the FIDE Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint from the DCA as not admissible as the latter “is not a member or organ of FIDE and lacks the capacity to represent the general interest that FIDE might have in a case like the present.”
“The fact that the complaint of the Delhi Chess Association was forwarded to the ETH (Ethics Commission) by a FIDE member, namely the All Indian Chess Federation, does not change the fact that the real complainant is the Delhi Chess Association which lacks locus standi in front of the ETH,” the FIDE Ethics Commission held on September 5, 2015.
“The ETH nevertheless observes that the complaint, taken merely at face value (accepting that the respondent has not had an opportunity to present her version of the events), discloses a strong prima facie case of the violations of par 2.2.6 and 2.2.11 of the FIDE Code of Ethics, i.e. the withdrawal from a tournament without valid reason and conduct (in this case the public criticism of the organisers and officials) likely to injure the goodwill attached to the event. GM Koneru Humpy is urged to react more appropriately in similar future situations,” the FIDE Ethics Commission held.
Incidentally, the AICF was successful with FIDE in revoking the ELO ratings of several Indian players for playing in independent chess tournaments or tournaments not recognised by the AICF.
Only recently, FIDE restored the ELO ratings of about 50 Indian chess players.
–IANS
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