Lakshya Sen’s Alleged Birth Certificate Forgery An Eye-Opener For Indian Olympians

Lakshya Sen is a rising name in the Indian badminton circuit. He was the closest Indian male shuttler to earn a medal at Paris 2024, becoming the first in the men’s singles category to enter the semi-finals.

Sen comes from a family of badminton players. He took inspiration from his brother Chirag, who was coached by U. Vimal Kumar and stepped into the badminton court.

The Arjuna awardee made an early rise in his career by clinching a silver medal at the 2018 Buenos Aires and a bronze at the 2018 Markham World Junior Championships. Besides that, he also clinched a gold and one silver at the Asia Junior Championships.

However, the Karnataka High Court’s stance to continue criminal proceedings on the Olympian and his brother Chirag, for birth certificate forgery by their parents has put a question mark on the authenticity of Indian Olympians as age fraud in the country is not uncommon among athletes in various levels.

Sen’s father is a coach at Prakash Padukone Academy and his mother is an employee of Karnataka Badminton Association.

Three petitions were filed by the accused, questioning the legality of the complaint filed by them based on a private complaint by Nagaraja MG in 2022 before a trial court.

It is alleged that Kumar Sen in collusion with the co-accused reduced the shuttlers’ age by two-and-a-half years to allow them to take part in the tournaments and earn other government benefits.

“When prima facie materials are placed on record, which constitute the offences, I do not find any reason either to stall the investigation or to quash the initiation of criminal proceedings. There are sufficient materials before the court, which are documents obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI). Under such circumstances, I do not find any reason to entertain the petitions,” Justice Uma said while dismissing the petitions filed by the accused.

Along with Dhirendra Kumar Sen (A1), his wife Nirmala Dhirendra Sen (A5), their sons Chirag (A2) and Lakshya (A3), their childhood coach U Vimal Kumar (A5) had filed the petitions.