KARACHI, June 24: The ongoing inaugural Asian junior boxing championship has become a controversial event as sport’s international ruling body International Boxing Association (AIBA) has been violating its own rules.

According to new AIBA rules, each jury member in a competition should be seated behind each of the five judges to judge the bout with the help of a second set of Chowdhry Scoring System or by using a hand held scoring machine.

AIBA’s rule XIII (1) says “in case a hand held machine is used (by the jury members) the result should be recorded on a scoring sheet and handed over before the announcement of the final result.”

While the new rule has made mandatory for the jury member to sit behind each judge, not a single member of the jury sat to judge the two boxers during the bout before hading over the final results as either they are unaware or breaching the rule.

Like in the previous championships and tournaments held before the amendment to the rules, the organizers have arranged a separate table for the chairman jury, technical delegate and the members.

Interestingly, the same rule was applied during the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, and Asian championship in Kuala Lumpur same year.

The sub-standard judging and refereeing has marred the championship with controversial decisions resulting in verbal and official protests.

Meanwhile, the jury reversed its decision of declaring Pakistan’s Jan Mohammad a 22-18 winner against Uzbekistan’s Krabaev Alibek in the welterweight semifinals.

The decision was taken on Thursday night following an official protest by Uzbekistan and took strong notice of poor judging and refereeing, technical delegate Kamil M. Shahib told Dawn on Friday.

The Syrian said jury would recommend a one-year ban against the referee and judges, some of them who were under training, and would be asked

to take their examinations again for below par performance.

“It was the two warnings in the third round given wrongly by the referee against the Uzbek boxer that made a mess besides poor judging. It could be one to four-year ban against the referee and recommendation for taking their examinations again.

But apart from re-examination, one-year ban against referee and judges will be recommended,” Shabib said.

He said according to rules, action could not be taken against the referee and judges during the championship and AIBA and Federation of Asian Amateur Boxing (FAAB) would approve the recommended penalty.

Kim Pyeong-Guk of Korea (FAAB), was the referee who officiated the fight, while Hourani Haytham (Iran) (FAAB), J. Jaysuriya (Sri Lanka) (FAAB), Ghadir Tavana (Iran) (FAAB), Najeh Nafe (Jordan) (FAAB), and Shamsul Bin Haji Deran (Malaysia) (FAAB), were the judges.