SPA ALUMNI
C/O SCHOOL OF PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE: NEW DELHI-110002
Ref.No. 25th
July, 2013
Minutes of the Extraordinary General
Body Meeting held on 20th July, 2013 at 5.30 p.m. in the Committee
Room of the Planning Building of the School.
Present:
Shri
Vijay Garg (Chairman) Prof. Manoj Mathur (Vice Chairman)
Shri
Mahesh Paliwal (Treasurer) Shri Amarjit Singh
Shri
Romesh Sapra Shri Ameet Babbar
Shri
Sahil Bhardwaj Shri Amit Aurora
Shri
Shamit Manchanda Ms. Amrita Raj
Prof.
Sharat Chandra Das Shri Ankit Gupta
Shri
Sudhir Vohra Shri Ashish Gupta
Shri
Tanuj Kumar Aggarwal Ms. Indu Mathur
Shri
Uday B. Kapre Shri Kirti Kumar
Arora
Shri
Manoj Diwedi Shri Mayank Sharma
Shri
Punit Sethi Shri Rafiq Kidwai
Shri
Aditya Kumar Singh
1. The
meeting was called to order. Due to lack of quorum the meeting was deferred for
half-an-hour and thereafter the reconvened meeting was called to order at 6:00
pm. Twenty-three members were present
and they constituted the required quorum.
Shri Vijay Garg, Chairman of SPA Alumni informed the members that Patron
had telephonically informed that he cannot reach the venue and meeting should
be cancelled and Shri Garg requested that he send a message so that all members
can be appraised. Thereafter, Shri Garg read out a message sent to him at 5:18
PM by the Patron, Director SPA,
“Vijay,
there is 2-3 feet water in SPA campus. Too risky to go inside. Let us postpone
todays GB meeting by a month. Chetan”
The
members present took strong exception to the late notice. They said that they
have reached here from different far-off locations by passing through flooded
roads and traffic jams for hours. Therefore, it is grossly unfair to cancel the
meeting after they have arrived. Majority of the members opined that the
meeting should be conducted as scheduled.
Shri Sudhir Vohra, opposed the view and said that the meeting should not
be held, as the e-mails of various persons and Patron showed that there are
some differences between the Alumni Association and the Patron. He felt that it
would be wrong to decide any matter with an insufficient number of members
present and raised a query of the attendance data on such meetings in the past. Shri Rafiq Kidwai also felt that the number
was less. After consulting the records, which showed that the present
attendance was above average, it was decided that the meeting may be held. Prof. Manoj Mathur suggested that as much as
possible the patron’s agenda should be discussed, though the issues may not be entirely
resolved. Members were free to record their dissent on resolutions they did not
agree on.
Considering the above, the Shri
Vijay Garg, Chairman SPA Alumni, informed that according to Patron’s letter
addressed to all members, this meeting is to be conducted under the
Chairmanship of Prof. Manoj Mathur, Vice-Chairman SPA Alumni. Accordingly, Prof.
Manoj Mathur took the Chair, welcomed all the members and appreciated their
efforts to attend the meeting. Thereafter, items on the agenda were taken up.
Item no. 1. Confirmation
of the minutes of the last meeting: This
was deferred to be taken up at the end of the meeting as members present were
more anxious to know more details about the situation that had been deemed
extraordinary by the Patron.
Item no. 2. Report
of the Electoral Officer. As
requested by the Chair, Shri Shamit Manchanda, Electoral Officer, briefed the
Members about the election process so far.
He informed that elections for
the next EC for the years 2013-16 were processed through various meetings of the
Committee and after due process, the elections were announced, nominations were
received and eligible candidates notified, ballot papers were posted to the
eligible Members, as per the schedule given in his letter dated 1st
May 2013. Some members complained to the
Patron that many members were unlikely to receive ballot papers as they had not
updated their addresses and for this reason the Elections should be called off.
In an Executive Committee meeting held on 31st May, 2013, in which
the complainants were invited, it was resolved,
as per the advice of the Patron, that the election process already started
could not be stopped and that after allowing one week’s time for members to
update their addresses, it should be resumed. All of a sudden, on 18th
June, 2013, the Patron declared the whole election process as Null-and-Void and
issued a letter informing all the Members by post. Ostensibly, one of the contentious points was
that the names of the Electoral Officers had not been ratified by the General
Body. Thereupon, some of the eligible candidates sent E-mails to selected
persons stating that they did not wish to contest any longer, even as their
names existed on the ballot paper. Many
members had cast their votes by then but due to the confusion ensuing the
Patron’s precipitate action, many other members did not send their completed ballot
papers.
Item no. 3. The Chair, Prof. Mathur said that the
agenda of the General Body Meeting as earlier announced, cannot be taken up
because the Patron has declared the election process Null-and-Void and has proposed
a revised agenda for this extraordinary GBM.
Shri Sudhir Vohra wished to know the functions, powers of the Patron
defined in the bye-laws of SPA Alumni. The
Constitution defines no role for the Patron and Prof. Mathur read out the limited
function of the Patron defined in the Clause 10 of the constitution. After consideration, the General Body
observed that, in fact, the Patron had no authority to declare the election
process as null-and-void and in so doing he had usurped the role of the General
Body.
Shri Vohra appealed that if the Constitution
does not define the powers of the Patron, then the General Body should define
it through the Constitutional provisions for effecting changes therein. On his
request these provisions were read out by the Chair. Shri Vohra proposed that
the General Body decide on it before proceeding further with the elections. Majority
of the present members objected and stated that the role of the patron, if and
when delineated, would be applicable in future and not in the present
case. The present situation is required
to be viewed as per the existing Constitution.
Members raised the doubt that if the
election process is continued, the Patron may not agree, but it was held that
the General Body is the Supreme body and its decision will override any view
the Patron may take. The Patron exists to help the GB with physical and human
resources and not to work against it. Even
so, Shri Ameet Babbar stressed, the General Body must initiate action to consider
and decide the powers of the Patron in order to prevent any confusion in
future. The General Body constituted a five-member committee under the
Chairmanship of Prof. Manoj Mathur with s/Shri Sudhir Vohra, Asish Gupta, Rafiq
Kidwai and Manoj Dwivedi, as Members to study, at length, this issue and all other
issues which may require constitutional changes and place them before the
General Body for consideration. The term of the committee was set as one year,
initially.
Prof. Sharat Das mentioned that he,
being the senior-most member among the present members, had seen the School enjoy
a great reputation earlier and the present acrimony cannot do the School any
good. The issue of election process should have been settled amicably between
the Association and the Parton. He lauded the contribution of the Association
in the past beginning with memorable celebration of Golden Jubilee of the
Department of Architecture under the chairmanship of Prof. Ram Sharma. He recalled
that when he himself was the Chairman of SPA Alumni, the School had not convened
General Council meetings for many years but when the MHRD, Govt. of India
wanted to amend the MOA of the School, without consulting the General Council,
the Association intervened and moved the Court. It won the litigation for the
restoration of old MOA on the grounds that the General Council had been bypassed. He noted that the SPA Alumni had supported
the School when it was sorely needed and that spirit should be maintained. This
is not the first time that the GBM has poor attendance, actually it is
remarkably good under the circumstances, so let us not get bogged down by these
non-issues and move ahead as there is much more to be done.
Shri Rafiq Kidwai and Shri Kirti
Kumar Arora echoed the sentiments of other members that for the last 20 years
they never heard from the SPA Alumni and this was the first time that they had
come for a GB meeting. They said they had never ever received a ballot paper
for any of the previous elections. Shri Shamit Manchanda informed that it was after
a long time that there were more eligible candidates than posts and ballot had
been necessitated. Shri Puneet Sethi appreciated the present Executive
Committee for having enthused so many members to actively participate, even if
the election was just a beginning.
Item
no. 4. The Chair apprised the
members of the second contentious issue, according to the Patron, that of
payment of Rs. 12.47 lacs by the school to the SPA Alumni. Patron had informed
members that many SPA alumni had paid membership fees but had not been enrolled
and this was one of the reasons for cancelling the elections. Chair explained
to the members that this enrolment cannot be done without the Patron himself,
as Director SPA, providing the details of break-up of these funds or their
purpose. Shri Vohra further elaborated that SPA also must explain how much of
this is the principal amount paid by students and what is the interest accrued
thereon.
The Chair elucidated that the process
of enrolment of these “missing names” cannot begin unless SPA provides the
names and contact details of each alumnus who had paid the “fees” over the last
so many years. The list could have as many as 7000 names. It was clarified to
the members that membership of the association is neither a compulsion nor a
right. Mr. Vohra observed that it is
purely voluntary and members have to agree to become members by paying up their
balance dues or else they should be paid their money back.
Members’ enrolment is an on-going
activity. The process of finding eligible members and their enrolment is an
open–ended one and can never be concluded. However, elections have to be
conducted periodically from amongst those who are fully-paid up members on a
particular record date. Therefore a prospective membership drive cannot become a
cause to suspend the elections. SPA Alumni cannot be held in a limbo pending
enrolment of new members which may take forever. It was unanimously resolved
the Election process should be logically and honorably concluded. The incoming
Executive Committee should pursue the matter with the SPA in all possible ways so
that the membership can be increased manifold.
Item no. 4 After detailed deliberations, the General
body unanimously decided that the election already started, but paused due to
the Patron’s action, should be continued in the following manner:
a. The
appointment of Shri Vijay Garg and Shri Shamit Manchanda as Electoral Officers
to conduct the elections, stands ratified by the GB.
b. The
Final list of candidates, as already notified by the Election Officers shall remain
unchanged.
c. The
Final list of eligible voters as already notified by the Election Officers shall
remain unchanged.
d. Ballot Papers already put in the ballot Box shall be
cancelled as also all the unused ones.
e. New
Ballot Papers shall be sent to all members by 10th August, 2013 so
that they can vote afresh and after allowing 4 weeks time polling shall close on
7th September, 2013. The new Ballot Papers shall be in Blue colour
to avoid confusion with the old ballot papers which were Pink colour.
f. The
present Executive Committee shall continue to fully discharge its functions
till it hands over charge to the new Executive Committee elected through the
due process as described in points (a) to (e) above..
Shri
Vohra proposed that on-line voting may be arranged to facilitate members who
are out of the country, but the proposal was not found viable at this stage.
The incoming Executive Committee can consider its logistical feasibility after
the required change in constitution is affected to facilitate it.
Deferred
Item No.1: Confirmation of the minutes of the last
meeting
The Chairman informed that the minutes
of the last meeting were circulated to all the members and no objection was
received. The General Body considered
and unanimously confirmed the minutes.
Item
No.6: Any
other item with the permission of Chair.
Under “any
other item”, the following was considered and resolved:
a. The Chairman, SPA
Alumni, Shri Vijay Garg, presented the
enclosed Report on various activities of the SPA Alumni, and the same was
considered and approved unanimously.
b. The
accounts for the years 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13
audited and filed with the concerned
authorities by the approved CA, Shri Prakash K. Prakash, Sagar Apartments, New
Delhi, were received and were considered to be sent for approval by the General
Body after circulation. The accounts are available for perusal by members on
the blog http://spadaa.blogspot.in/
c. The term of the CA, M/s Prakash K.
Prakash was approved by the GB for next three years.
d. The
General Body considered that full-time staff in sufficient number should be
available in the Secretariat of the SPA Alumni to enable more interaction with
members as well as for day-to-day work to be carried out smoothly. The office
should be managed by SPA Alumni EC and supported by the School. It was noted
that as per the constitution, a member of the association cannot be paid any
honorarium for services rendered to the association. Members’ services are
voluntary. We are thankful to Shri Haresh Lalwani, for his assistance rendered
from time to time in carrying out our activities, but still regular office
needs to be in operation. Shri Vijay Garg added that we are working in this
direction, and apprised that recently one assistant, Smt. Neeraj Sharma has
been deputed in the SPA Alumni Office, by the Patron.
There being no item, the meeting ended
with vote of thanks to the Chair.
(Manoj Mathur)
Vice-Chairman
To:
All
members of the SPA Alumni
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