Delhi High Court has directed Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) to not go ahead with its proposed plan of inducting 69 new life members, two individual members and 20 club members at its annual general meeting schedule to be held in Delhi on Sunday. It dealt a blow to the EFI bid to induct leading Army officials as members.
Hearing an application by Rajasthan Equestrian Association to stay the meeting, Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora placed restrictions on EFI, directing that any approvals accorded to the Secretary-General’s report and the audited statement of accounts shall not be final and will remain subject to the approval of the Executive Committee after the elections are held.
While acceding to the EFI submission that the Secretary-General’s Report, annual Statement of Accounts and proposed budget had to be passed because they are statutory requirements, the Court directed that only State Associations, Clubs and Institutions would have voting rights at the annual general meeting, ruling out individual members.
The Judge also directed the Delhi High Court-appointed Observer SY Quraishi to chair the meeting in the absence of a President and Vice President (Administration). This rules out EFI Vice President (Finance) Harish Khokkar from chairing the meeting He has signed some official documents as EFI President and the EFI Statement of Accounts as Treasurer.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said staying the meeting a couple of days before it is due to be held would create inconvenience to the members who would have already made arrangements to reach Delhi to attend the meeting. She also drew on the fact that Rajasthan Equestrian Association had not objected to the annual general meetings held in March 2021 and March 2022.
In July 2020, Justice Naveen Chawla of the Delhi High Court restrained Lt. Gen. SS Mishra and Lt. Gen. MKS Yadav from acting as interim President and Vice-President respectively. They had been only recently nominated to these positions upon taking charge as Quartermaster General and Director-General, Supplies & Transport in the Indian army.
However, it was after the last annual general meeting in March 2022, when the constitution was changed without prior notice, that EFI left itself crippled without a proper Executive Committee. The constitutional amendments saw Secretary-General Col. Jaiveer Singh ‘remove’ a number of elected members, including Vice President (Technical) Col. Jagat Singh.
Vice President (Veterinary) Lt. Gen. PR Venkatesh, Vice President (Sports Development) Brig. SS Kashyap, Col. Vikas Thakur (Member – Medication Control & Equine Welfare), Lt. Col. DP Nanda and Mr. Sanjay Gupta were also removed because ‘new’ Statutes do not provide for their positions.
Besides, Col. SS Kashyap, Col. Charanjit Sohal, Col. Tarsem Singh and Col. PP Singh were removed as they had completed four years as EC members. Such a wholesale purging of the elected Executive Committee, ostensibly to comply with the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, left EFI with only three available members, four short of the quorum of seven.
On April 11 this year, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela had directed EFI to conduct its elections so that a democratically elected body would be in place. While allowing recognised State/Union Territory Associations to be part of the electoral college, he devised a formula for club/unit members in other States/Union Territories to have only a proportionate share in the electoral college.
However, despite agreeing in his Court that elections were necessary, EFI preferred to appeal on May 8, 2023, to a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court and has not taken any steps to conduct the elections despite there being no stay on Justice Tushar Rao Gedela’s ruling. It will be left to the Courts to make an early decision in the matter of the EFI elections.
What’s left to be discussed and what role would life members play once they have not voting rights or say in the Agm The clubs all exist in some state /UT they should have encouraged to come together to form their respective. State /Ut bodies by now as enough time has been wasted if the intent was to move forward with the sport
indian equestarian team dressage eqqulified for asian games
anush agarwala sudipti hajela divikriti sing hirdey chheda with two MER for team selection
yesterday in a very profile show indian dressage riders have qulified for asian games
theses rider had tough time training at europe since three yr out of comfort they decided to qulifiy from eurpoe becuse in india there is limitation of internation coach andhorses to make upto the international standerds