Kerala HC Upholds KAT Order Directing Taekwondo Poomsae Medallist's Inclusion in Sports Quota Select List
The Kerala High Court dismissed the State's challenge to a Kerala Administrative Tribunal order that entitled Taekwondo Poomsae bronze medallist Ranjith K to consideration in the sports quota select list, holding that no document showed the Kerala Sports Council had ever differentiated between Taekwondo Kyorugi and Taekwondo Poomsae.
A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court at Ernakulam, comprising Justice Anil K. Narendran and Justice Muralee Krishna S., on 31 July 2026 dismissed an original petition filed by the State of Kerala challenging a Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) order that had directed the State to consider including Ranjith K in its sports quota select list. Ranjith K had won bronze medals at the ninth and tenth National Senior Taekwondo (Poomsae) Championships in 2017 and 2018 while representing Kerala. The State had denied him 35 grace points on the ground that Taekwondo Poomsae was not recognised by the Kerala State Sports Council at the time of those championships. The bench, exercising supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution, found no patent perversity or manifest error in the Tribunal's order and declined to interfere.
The Sports Quota Notification and the Rejection
The State Government, by a gazette notification dated 18 February 2021 (Annexure A1), invited applications from outstanding sports persons for 249 posts covering the period 2015–2019. Appendix II to that notification listed eligible sports events in three categories. Category 1 covered events included in the Olympics, with Taekwondo listed as item No. 15. Category 2 covered Asian Games events, again listing Taekwondo as item No. 15. Category 3 comprised events outside categories 1 and 2 that the Kerala Sports Council had separately notified.
Ranjith K submitted an online application on 10 March 2021 through the Kerala Sports Council website. His claim rested on bronze medals he won at the National Senior Taekwondo (Poomsae) Championships of 2017 and 2018, certificates for which he produced as Annexures A2 and A3. He argued he was entitled to 35 points under paragraph 2.17 of the notification for winning a medal at a Senior National Championship conducted by the Taekwondo Federation of India, the recognised national federation.
When the gazette notification dated 1 February 2024 published the select list, Ranjith K's name was absent. He submitted a representation dated 12 February 2024 to the Secretary, Department of Sports and Youth Affairs. By letter dated 23 March 2024, the department rejected the representation. The stated reason was that the Taekwondo Association of Kerala coach had described Ranjith K's certificate as unrecognised and characterised the event as a Junior Level National Meet.
Ranjith K first moved the Kerala High Court in W.P.(C) No. 20273 of 2024. The High Court passed an interim order on 7 June 2024 directing reservation of one post, but disposed of the writ petition on 5 July 2024 for want of jurisdiction. He then approached the KAT, Additional Bench at Ernakulam, with O.A.(EKM) No. 1001 of 2024.
What the Tribunal Decided
The KAT, by its order dated 5 August 2024, allowed the original application. It set aside the rejection letter of 23 March 2024 and directed the State to consider Ranjith K's case for inclusion in the select list at the appropriate position within two months of receiving a copy of the order.
The Tribunal identified two issues: first, whether the Poomsae discipline of Taekwondo was covered under the 2021 notification; and second, whether Ranjith K had won his medal at a Senior Championship. On the first issue, the Tribunal observed that Taekwondo figured in both Category 1 (Olympics) and Category 2 (Asian Games) of the notification's Appendix II without any distinction between Kyorugi and Poomsae, and that according to Annexure A15, Poomsae-based Taekwondo competitions are held at the Asian Games and Olympics. On the second issue, the Tribunal noted that Annexures A2 and A3 showed that Ranjith K won the bronze medal in the National Senior Taekwondo (Poomsae) Championships in the ‘Under 30’ category.
The State, represented by the Additional Chief Secretary, General Administration (Services D), and the Secretary, Department of Sports and Youth Affairs, challenged this order in OP(KAT) No. 460 of 2024 before the High Court.
The State's Argument and the Sports Council's Position
The Government Pleader argued before the High Court that while Taekwondo appears in the notification, it refers only to Taekwondo Kyorugi, which is the traditional Olympic discipline. Taekwondo Poomsae, it was submitted, was not included in the Kerala State Sports Council Grant-in-Aid Rules until the year 2024. The Standing Committee of the Kerala State Sports Council considered the request to include Poomsae only at its meeting on 16 February 2024, as reflected in Annexure A13. Therefore, the Tribunal had erred in holding the 2017 and 2018 championships to be qualifying events under the notification.
The Kerala State Sports Council, the second respondent in the original application, filed a counter affidavit in the High Court proceedings and argued in the same vein. Its counter affidavit explained that Poomsae is a series of movements for offence and defence following a fixed pattern and is conceptually distinct from Kyorugi. The Council stated that Poomsae was not included in its Grant-in-Aid Regulations until 2024, and that the request for its inclusion was made as late as 16 December 2023 by the Taekwondo Association of Kerala.
The Council also invoked Section 31(1)(a)(ix) of the Kerala Sports Act, pointing out that only sports organisations recognised under that provision are eligible for financial aid and grace marks, and that inclusion of a sport item in the Grant-in-Aid Regulations is a precondition for those benefits. Since Poomsae was included only in 2024, the Council submitted that Ranjith K's application had been rightly rejected.
How the Division Bench Reasoned
Justice Muralee Krishna S., writing the judgment for the bench, began by setting out the settled limits of Article 227 jurisdiction. Relying on Shalini Shyam Shetty v. Rajendra Shankar Patil [(2010) 8 SCC 329], Jai Singh v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi [(2010) 9 SCC 385], K.V.S. Ram v. Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation [(2015) 12 SCC 39], and the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Sobhana Nair K.N. v. Shaji S.G. Nair [2016 (1) KHC 1], the court restated that supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 does not permit the High Court to sit as an appellate court over a tribunal's findings. Interference is warranted only where the tribunal has acted in grave dereliction of duty, committed a patent perversity, caused a gross and manifest failure of justice, or flouted basic principles of natural justice.
Turning to the substantive question, the bench examined the three categories in Appendix II of the 2021 notification. It observed that Taekwondo appears as item No. 15 in both Category 1 (Olympics) and Category 2 (Asian Games) without any notation distinguishing Kyorugi from Poomsae. Because Taekwondo is listed in categories 1 and 2, there was no occasion for it to appear separately in Category 3. The bench found that no document was produced by the State or the Sports Council to show that the Kerala Sports Council had ever drawn a formal distinction between Taekwondo Kyorugi and Taekwondo Poomsae in its approvals.
The bench drew a specific distinction between inclusion in the Grant-in-Aid Rules and recognition under the Sports Council's broader framework. Annexures A12, A13, and A15 — which the petitioners themselves relied upon — related only to Poomsae's inclusion in the Grant-in-Aid Rules. The bench held that those documents did not establish that Taekwondo Poomsae was unapproved by the Sports Council for all purposes until 2024, particularly in the absence of any other corroborating material.
The bench also noted the documentary trail that Ranjith K had consistently received State recognition for his Poomsae participation long before his sports quota application was rejected. The Kerala Sports Council had paid him a cash award of Rs. 15,000 for his national-level medal achievements in 2017 and 2018, as evidenced by the Sports Council letter dated 24 November 2021. He had received sports quota benefits during his schooling, including admission under sports quota to the Higher Secondary section. District-level Sports Council observers had issued him certificates for participation in District Senior Taekwondo Championships from 2016 to 2020. The bench found it difficult to square this uninterrupted pattern of recognition with the claim that Poomsae was never an approved sports item.
The bench also referred to the judgment of the High Court of Manipur at Imphal dated 4 October 2023 in W.P.(C) No. 991 of 2021, where that court held that Poomsae is a recognised sub-event of Taekwondo and that a player representing Manipur in the individual Senior Male Poomsae event at the 39th National Taekwondo Championship could not be denied the benefit of that participation simply because the event had not been separately organised in All India Police Meets. The Manipur High Court had observed that “Poomsae is the event of Taekwondo” and that whatever sub-event of Taekwondo is played comes within the broader umbrella of Taekwondo championship.
On the specific question of whether the championships in 2017 and 2018 were Senior-level events, the bench found the position clear from Annexures A2 and A3: the medals were won in the National Senior Taekwondo (Poomsae) Championships in the Under 30 category, satisfying the notification's requirement for a Senior National Championship conducted by the recognised national federation.
The bench concluded that the Tribunal's findings were neither perverse nor palpably unreasonable. The rejection of Ranjith K's claim had been based solely on an oral statement by the Taekwondo Association of Kerala's coach, and no documentary evidence supported the State's position that Poomsae had been formally excluded from the Sports Council's approvals at the time of the 2017 and 2018 championships.
Outcome
The Division Bench dismissed OP(KAT) No. 460 of 2024 on 31 July 2026. The KAT order dated 5 August 2024 — directing the State to consider Ranjith K for inclusion in the sports quota select list at the appropriate position and to issue consequential orders within two months of receipt of a copy of the order — stands.