The Karnataka High Court sanctioned an investigation against ace Badminton player Lakshya Sen, his brother Chirag Sen, their parents -father Dhirendra Sen, mother Nirmala D. Sen, and coach U. Vimal Kumar in an alleged age-fraud case. The shuttler appealed to the Karnataka High Court to dismiss the case, but Justice M G Uma rejected his plea and issued an investigation.
Previously, a criminal case was filed against Lakshya, his family and his coach for fabricating the age by two and a half years, which helped the Sen brothers compete in junior badminton tournaments. Nagaraja M.G. who runs a badminton academy, registered the complaint in December 2022, after discovering that Vimal Kumar, who was a coach at Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, along with Lakshya’s parents, forged birth certificate documents in 2010 to help the brothers participate in age-restricted tournaments.
Notably, according to media reports, the police registered the case in 2022 under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 471 (using as genuine a forged record) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Nevertheless, the investigation was stopped after the Karnataka High Court granted an interim stay.
“When prima facie materials are placed on record which constitute the offences, I do not find any reason either to stall the investigation or to quash the initiation of criminal proceedings. There are sufficient materials that are placed before the Court by the complainant which are the documents that are obtained under the Right to Information Act from the appropriate authority. Under such circumstances, I do not find any reason to entertain the petitions,” said Justice Uma after refusing the petition after observing that the authenticity of the documents was not challenged by Lakshya.
Meanwhile, this wasn’t the first instance of age fraud in Badminton. In 2016, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) suspended Chirag Shetty after one of the documents showed his birth age to be 1998, while he was competing in junior tournaments using a birth certificate that stated he was born in 2005.