Olympic body calls general house meeting; Chandigarh association in a fix

An announcement regarding the Indian Olympic Association’s general house meeting on August 13 has put the ‘defunct’ Chandigarh Olympic Association (COA) in a fix. After resolving its ‘internal conflict’, the IOA has called the meeting to elect the new house. However, the COA, which is now headed by a High Court appointed ‘Administrator’, is yet to figure out who will attend the meeting.

In accordance with Article 10.3 of the IOA Constitution, one representative of each of the associate members, which are state/UT Olympic Associations, sports control board and member National Sport Federations (not mentioned in Article 1 0.1), may attend the special general meeting, but shall not have a right to vote.

The names of the representatives shall be forwarded to the IOA at least seven days prior to the meeting. The associations concerned have been asked to forward the names of the representatives to the IOA by August 5.

Meanwhile, as per Article 10.1 of the IOA Constitution, member national sports federation (two representatives each with one vote for each representative, provided one female and one male); IOC Member in India (one vote), two representatives of the Athletes Commission (one vote for each representative, one female and one male) and eight representatives of Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit (one vote each, four females and four males) are entitled to cast vote.

In the past, COA presidents had attended such meetings.

However, in January, Justice Kuldeep Tiwari had ordered a fresh election to the association and directed the Chandigarh Deputy Commissioner to appoint an ‘administrator’ for the same.

After almost a month, DC Nishant Kumar Yadav appointed Hari Kallikkat as the ‘administrator’.

It will be interesting to see if any representative of the COA will attend the meeting or not.

In May, Kallikkat had assigned two DANICS (Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Civil Services) officers — Khushpreet Kaur and Amit Kumar— the work of conducting COA elections.

Khushpreet was tasked with preparing electoral rolls and Kumar was appointed returning officer. Till date, no public announcement has been made regarding the election process.

“A solution to the COA conflict will only come after the ‘administrator’ finalises the electoral rolls, which is not an easy task…given the allegations made by former office-bearers,” said a highly placed source in the UT Sports Department.

Last month, The Tribune had reported the registration of three sports bodies, bearing near identical names, under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. Sources had claimed that three bodies — Chandigarh Olympic Association Chandigarh (No 280, registered on August 23, 1976), Chandigarh Olympic Association (No 550, registered on January 24, 1980) and Chandigarh Olympic Association Chandigarh (No 1633, registered on September 18, 1989) — were registered under the Act. The registration of the body No 280 was cancelled on January 22, 1980, by the then Registrar of Societies.