Chess player told to run 1 km in 6 mts for DU sports seat

Seeking admission under the sports quota, a chess player has moved Delhi High Court after being denied a seat because she couldn't clear a recently-instituted physical fitness test which mandated that she should be able to run a distance of 1 km in 6 minutes or 50 metres in 9 seconds.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw on Monday reserved their order on the petition which was filed against Delhi University, its sports council and four colleges which come under the university.

Petitioner Chetna Karnani, a student of Sadhu Vaswani International School in R K Puram, submitted that she had been playing chess for more than seven years and had participated successfully in inter-school tournaments. She said she had applied to eight colleges in DU under the sports quota but was shocked to learn that for the first time the university had introduced a physical fitness test for each candidate.

The petition stated that under the earlier system, admission under the sports category was given on the basis of a points system which took into account representation at school-level as well as points awarded in trials for the sport held by the university. It said a general fitness category was never included as it was recognised that fitness could not be generalised across sporting disciplines.

Under the new system introduced in 2012, candidates are required to pass two of three fitness modules that test strength, endurance and speed, the petition stated.

During arguments, advocate Rajat Aneja, appearing for the petitioner, said that the university had earlier insisted only on 'game-specific fitness' which varied for different sports. He argued that his client could not be placed under the category of an athlete as chess required mental faculties more than anything else.

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