Kolkata: East Bengal were not denied a penalty in Saturday’s Kolkata derby in the Indian Super League, said Trevor Kettle, chief refereeing officer of the All India Football Federation.

Following Mohun Bagan Super Giant’s 1-0 win, Kettle said he had convened a meeting of the Key Match Incidents panel and all five members, including three referees’ assessors at Asian Football Confederation, were unanimous that referee Venkatesh R was right.

The incident in question was a shot from East Bengal’s PV Vishnu striking Lalengmawia Ralte’s arm. Kettle said the instruction to referees this time has been to ask themselves if the hand was in “a justified (natural) position” when the ball strikes it. “The ball hitting the arm or the hand is not in its own right an effect (a foul),” he said from New Delhi during a virtual media conference on Monday.

Ralte’s arm was “clearly in a justified position,” he said. The arm being slightly away is normal just like it is to have arms away from the body when a player attempts a shot, he said. “There is no deliberate action to handle the ball. So, that is not a handball.”

Kettle accepted referee Tejas Nagvenkar was “deceived” by Odisha FC’s Diego Mauricio which led to East Bengal’s Jeakson Singh getting a second booking. Mistakes happen, he said. The punishment could not be rescinded because that can only happen for direct red cards. It is the same in the Premier League.

Given that his brief is to improve the standard of Indian referees, Kettle said he was against getting foreign referees to ISL as would happen in the first six seasons. Before the season, the former Premier League assistant referee said, he had conducted a survey among coaches and found that the average acceptance of accuracy in major decisions was around 82.5%. That is the number referees have achieved so far this term, he said.