The All India Tennis Association (AITA) Tuesday hit back strongly against the charges levelled at it by tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi saying the player was free to take a legal recourse against the association.
Hiranmoy Chatterjee, senior executive committee member of the AITA, said that the association was justified in sidelining Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna from playing in the national team till June 2014.
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“The AITA is not perturbed by Bhupathi's threat of a legal action. We have gone by the rule book. The decision was taken by the ethics committee according to rule 36 (A2) of our constitution,” Chatterjee told IANS over phone from Kolkata.
Bhupathi and Bopanna had defied AITA’s decision of asking them to play with Leander Paes for the 2012 London Games. They refused to play with Paes to play together at the Games. Chatterjee said Bhupathi “wants to be a selector, player and an administrator at the same time.”
“He selects himself and then decides with whom to play. If he has to do everything then what is the selection committee there for?
“We have sent out a strong signal that indiscipline will not be tolerated," said Chatterjee.u00a0