Pune: The Jharkhand Tennis Association (JTA) has filed an intervening application in the Delhi High Court against the All India Tennis Association’s decision to promote Goa and Rajasthan from associate to affiliate membership with voting rights during the Annual General Meeting on September 30.The JTA said that it was not against conferring affiliate membership on Goa and Rajasthan itself, but objected to the manner in which was done and that the two state units’ voting rights must be suspended until the matter is adjudicated upon by the court. Chintan Parikh, the AITA interim president, however, said that denying the two associations their voting rights would have been “unfair”.AITA, which is at present governed by an interim committee supervised by an Administrator appointed by the Delhi HC, is scheduled to hold its elections on November 27.In its appeal, the JTA has argued that the matter was not listed on the agenda for the AGM, which was originally supposed to be an Extraordinary General Meeting, and the promotion of Goa and Rajasthan added four votes — two votes for each association — to the electoral college.Given that the election process was already underway and that Parikh was a prospective candidate, the decision without prior notice raised concerns over fairness of the election process, the JTA said in its application.Parikh indeed announced on Sunday (November 1) his decision to contest for president in alliance with the legendary Leander Paes, who currently heads the Bengal association and will stand for vice president.Parikh said that Goa and Rajasthan had completed the mandatory two-year period of associateship to be eligible for affiliate membership and the decision to promote them was approved unanimously by the General Body.“Rajasthan and Goa have completed their mandatory period of two years as associated Affiliates. They sent us an application to be come full state affiliates,” Parikh said in a statement to The Times of India.“The matter was to go to AGM in November. Due to legal provision in the constitution, annual accounts need to be passed in AGM and that too before September 30th. Hence, we decided to convert the September meeting as AGM.“A communication was sent in advance about it to the members. In an EGM only the mentioned agenda can be discussed, while in the AGM any agenda with permission of the Chair can be discussed. Yes, we could have placed the matter in agenda but that does not change the legal position of the matters that can be discussed in AGM. “There were 28 out of 30 states present. All of them unanimously approved the matter, because it was not a matter with any hidden agenda. “What is unanimously approved by the General Body, a lone state who was absent cannot and should not challenge, whether the matter was an agenda item or not. “The spirit was not to deprive two states of their voting rights until 2030. This would have been very unfair,” he said.With regard to JTA’s specific claim that Parikh’s decision was “aimed at manipulating the elections by attempting to secure favourable votes” from Goa and Rajasthan, Parikh said: “They may vote for anybody. They are independent affiliates. They are given the voting power by the General Body and not by the President. It is a foolish hypothesis.”The matter is expected to be heard on November 6.
Source link
Auto GoogleTranslater News
