The Weekend Leader - AICF ordered to deposit Rs 58.50 lakh for holding polls

AICF ordered to deposit Rs 58.50 lakh for holding polls

VENKATACHARI JAGANNATHAN   |  Chennai

05-March-2020

The Madras High Court-appointed Returning Officer for the All India Chess Federation (AICF) election has ordered the chess body to deposit Rs 58.50 lakh towards remuneration for himself, two Assistant Returning Officers, secretarial staff and other charges so that he can commence the election process as per the National Sports Development Code.

In his order, former Supreme Court judge Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla said the Madras High Court on February 18 had requested him to convene a Special General Body meeting of AICF for conducting election of officebearers by sending fresh notices for all the members along with date, time, and place and also fix the date for filing of nominations and others.

Listing out the various election procedures listed out in the National Sports Development Code for holding the elections at Hyderabad -- a venue decided by the Madras High Court -- Kalifulla said the entire exercise would involve work for more than 10 days for him as the Returning Officer, two Assistant Returning Officers and Secretarial Assistants.

The court had earlier appointed Kalifulla as the Returning Officer and ordered that the AICF should pay him a fee of Rs 5,00,000 apart from other expenses.

"I have to write to the state associations on the matter to ascertain their views and act accordingly," Bharat Singh Chauhan, Secretary, AICF told IANS.

Continuing further, he said: "It is chess players' money. I will be the last person to spend so much money on elections."

Last month Kalifulla had declared five persons as elected unopposed for various posts for the period 2020-2023.

The five are Ajay H. Patel as President, Bharat Singh Chauhan as Secretary, Naresh Sharma as Treasurer, M. Arun Singh as Joint Secretary and Vipnesh Bharadwaj as Vice President.

Kalifulla had rejected the nomination forms of 23 contestants -- including that of then President P.R. Venkatrama Raja and several others -- as they did not file their nominations in person as specified in the para 6.4 of the National Sports Development Code.

Subsequently, the five persons who were declared elected assumed office.

But on February 18, the High Court set aside the election of the five and asked the Returning Officer to convene a Special General Body Meeting to conduct fresh elections.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal made by Chauhan's camp against the High Court's order necessitating the start of the election process for AICF.

Meanwhile, the AICF has now reverted to the old officebearers. The AICF website now lists Raja as President, Chauhan as Secretary, and Kishor M. Bandekar as Treasurer.

The website also lists five Vice Presidents and four Joint Secretaries.

Earlier, the global chess body FIDE has taken down the list of new officebearers of AICF as there was no legal clarity on their position. IANS



Milky Mist Cheese