Brij Bhushan Verdict Makes it Harder for Women Athletes to Call Out Abuse

For many athletes, inappropriate conduct is tolerated, normalised, or dismissed as the price of pursuing excellence.

(Illustration: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

One of the most memorable moments in the film Dangal comes when the coach tells his daughter that if she wins, she will not be winning for herself alone, but for millions of girls who dare to dream.

A decade ago, I remember watching Sakshi Malik being hoisted onto her coach's shoulders after winning India's historic bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Years later, I found myself in tears again, this time for Vinesh Phogat, when she was heartbreakingly unable to compete in what was an almost confirmed shot at Olympic gold at the 2024 Paris Games. These women were not just wrestlers; they became symbols of strength, perseverance, sacrifice, and the aspirations of an entire nation.

To then witness them sitting on the streets in 2023, braving the scorching summer heat at Jantar Mantar, and later travelling to Haridwar with the resolve to immerse their hard-earned medals in the Ganga, was a deeply painful and sobering moment.

In our country, sports is not even a career conversation for the majority of girls. Imagine the resistance these women wrestlers must have had to face to even train for a contact support like wrestling. 

An Acquittal That Leaves Bigger Questions

On 3 August 2026, a Delhi court acquitted former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President and former BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of charges of sexual harassment brought by several women wrestlers. The Delhi Police had charge sheeted Singh under Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 354D (stalking), and 506(1) (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. 

The prosecution case arose from complaints by 6 women wrestlers who alleged that the misconduct took place at the WFI office and during official training camps and tournament-related travel. After a trial conducted on camera, the Rouse Avenue Court held that the prosecution had failed to establish the charges beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted both Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and co-accused Vinod Tomar. 

The verdict may have concluded the criminal trial at the first instance, but it has also revived broader questions about institutional accountability, power dynamics in sport, and the barriers faced by women athletes when they speak out against those in positions of authority or to simply put, someone who can make or break their careers in sports which is itself a tough field to get into in a country like ours. 

The suffering of women wrestlers is not anecdotal; it is institutional. It begins long before a complaint is ever filed. Young girls enter wrestling academies with dreams of representing India, only to discover that success often depends not merely on talent and discipline, but on navigating deeply unequal power structures.

Coaches, federation officials, and selectors exercise extraordinary influence over training opportunities, team selection, foreign exposure, and career progression. For many athletes, inappropriate conduct is tolerated, normalised, or dismissed as the price of pursuing excellence.

Why Survivors Stay Silent

What I have found to be common across almost every case involving allegations against powerful individuals is the nature of the defence that emerges. The questions are strikingly familiar: Why did the complainants not speak up earlier? If the allegations were true, why did they continue interacting with the accused? Why did they attend events, pose for photographs, or maintain cordial relations?

In the case of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, one of the arguments was that one of the wrestlers had invited him to her wedding, as though that single fact was sufficient to discredit every allegation that followed. But this argument ignores the fundamental reality of power imbalance in elite sport. Brij Bhushan was not merely an acquaintance; he was the President of the Wrestling Federation of India, a man who exercised enormous influence over selections, training camps, funding, international exposure, and the careers of hundreds of wrestlers.

In such relationships, such gestures or continued professional engagement cannot, by themselves, be treated as evidence that no misconduct occurred, in fact it’s stark evidence of the plight of athletes who. Athletes often maintain relationships with those in authority because their sporting future depends on them.

The experience of the women wrestlers in India is not unique. The United States witnessed a similar reckoning in the Larry Nassar scandal, where the former US Gymnastics and Michigan State University Doctor sexually abused hundreds of young athletes over the course of decades. The subsequent investigations revealed not merely the crimes of this one individual, but how the system was rotten to the point where despite multiple complaints over the years and how authorities meant to look out for the athletes enabled the abuse to continue despite repeated warnings.

The Law Wasn't Built for Sports

The deeper structural problem this case brings to surface is not about this order at all, it is about the framework, or the absence of one, that governs complaints against the leadership of national sports federations. In India, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013, was built around the employer-employee relationship inside a defined workplace. A national sports federation is neither a conventional employer to the athletes who compete under it, nor easily slotted into the "unorganised sector" local committee mechanism the Act provides as a fallback.

Athletes training under and answering to a federation president occupy a position of dependence  for selection, for funding, for access to competition that mirrors a workplace hierarchy almost exactly, yet the statute to prevent sexual harassment at workplace was never built with that specific power dynamics in mind.

That gap is precisely why this dispute had to be routed entirely through the criminal process which included the FIR that was only registered after the Supreme Court intervened, a chargesheet and multiple hearings over a span of three years rather than any internal or statutory redressal mechanism. Criminal law was never meant to be the only door available to a complainant with nowhere else to go. 

The irony is difficult to miss. One of the Special Public Prosecutors who had represented the State in the Nirbhaya case, which is widely regarded as a watershed moment in India's response to sexual violence, was the one who lead the defence for Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

There is, of course, nothing improper about a lawyer appearing for the defence; that is the very essence of the adversarial justice system. Yet, the contrast is striking.

While the accused enjoys deep influence, political backing, and access to best legal resources, it is often the complainants who bear the greater cost. They risk their careers, public reputation, mental well-being, and years of hard-earned professional achievement, while the institutional machinery available to the powerful continues to function in their defence.

The imbalance, often, lies not in who speaks, but in who has the power to be heard.

(The author is partner at Tatvika Legal, a full-service law firm based in Delhi NCR. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)