Pune: The Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA)’s reputation as one of the sport’s powerhouses in the country has suffered a setback after parts of its Mumbai facility, the MSLTA Ranade Tennis Centre, were sealed by the state government over alleged violations of land lease conditions.
We received a notice from the Commissioner of Sports on October 7 and had one week to reply. But there was a delay, and they sealed the rooms on October 26,” said MSLTA president Prashant Sutar. “The rooms had been leased to SBI Coal India, which is against the guidelines of the contract.
2-crore government grant, and raised concerns over alleged amendments to the MSLTA’s tenure rules that purportedly enabled the office-bearer’s continuation beyond previously prescribed term limits. Meanwhile, Sutar confirmed that the MSLTA had received a communication from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, routed through the principal secretary (sports), seeking an inquiry into the conduct of one of the association’s office-bearers.
The notice says that we were supposed to use the facility for development of tennis, and padel is not an Olympic sport,” he said. Sutar said: “We will be replying to the honourable CM’s letter within a week. “Padel courts were built without taking permission, and it was given to a third party. The Chief Minister’s communication followed a complaint submitted by a Chhattisgarh-based lawyer in September. In his representation, the lawyer alleged conflict of interest in the award of event-management contracts to entities linked to the office-bearer’s family, questioned the transfer and utilisation of an approximately Rs. But I want to clarify that such allegations are not new to associations when elections are around the corner. “But we are answerable to the Government of Maharashtra. The audit process of MSLTA will be completed in a day or two, and we will be submitting it.