Sameeha Barwin Wins Her Fight Against Gender Discrimination

While hearing the case, Justice R Mahadevan said that Barwin's performance cannot be overlooked. The judge said, "Even going by the past records of the petitioner, she had won 11 gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze in various state and national events. This achievement of the petitioner cannot be simply brushed aside."

Sameeha Barwin in her argument had pointed out that the sports council in their statement from July 28, 2021 had claimed that they were unable to select her because of technical reasons.

The plea read,  “The selection trial was conducted at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on 22nd of July 2021 and on the basis of the performance, merit list of the probable was compiled. The SAI (Sports Authority of India) …. (was) to select best five only…. As per the merit list ranking, Ms Sameera Barwin was standing on 8th place."

Sameeha highlighted that out of 12 athletes who participated during selections, 10 were men. The sports council reportedly had said that they didn't want to send a lone female athlete to the championship.

Sameeha Barwin has a 90 per cent hearing impairment. She said that the decision of the sports council to not send her amounts to gender discrimination.

The court said, "Admittedly, out of the five selected athletes, none of the female athletes were selected. In the female category, it was the petitioner who stood first and therefore, in all fairness, the petitioner ought to have been selected by the respondents so that she could bring laurels to the country by participating in the 4th World Deaf Athletics Championship."