Narinder Batra resigns as FIH, IOA president; also quits as IOC member

International Olympic Committee (IOC), citing "personal reasons". In an identical communication addressed separately to the Executive Boards (ECs) of the IOA and FIH and to IOC's president Thomas Bach, Batra thanked them for their "support and guidance". "Due to personal reasons, I submit my resignation from the post of president for which I was elected in 2017.

Thank you for your support and guidance," Batra wrote in his brief message to the IOA's executive board members. In a similar communication to the FIH's EB, Batra stated: "Due to personal reasons, I submit my resignation from the post of president FIH". Later, in his letter to Bach, Batra wrote: "Due to personal reasons, I submit my resignation from the post of IOC member.

Thank you for your support and guidance." Batra was inducted as an IOC member in 2019 and later became a member of its Olympic Channel Commission. He was re-elected as the FIH president for a second term in May 2021. The development came two weeks after the Delhi High Court had refused to stay an order by which Batra was restrained from discharging any function as IOA president.

On May 25, when Batra was originally removed as the IOA chief after the Court ruled that his appointment as 'life member' of Hockey India (HI) was unconstitutional and illegitimate under the sports code, the two-judge bench had ordered: "Respondent-3 (read Batra) knew fully well that the post of Life President and Life Member in an NSF is illegal. He had been specifically intimated to by the Government of India. Yet when Hockey India was registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act 1860, on 28.05.2009 and was granted prompt recognition by the Government of India within a couple of days thereof, R-3 went