The Fishcopfed elections witnessed a complete breakdown of constitutional provisions on Thursday-Friday when both the Returning Officer and the Central Registrar indulged more in whims than in the established norms in conducting their respective responsibilities.
Despite an order suspending the election proceedings, the Returning Officer went ahead with initiating the poll-process and announcing the results. 11 out of 12 directors from the previous board were elected unopposed. Not only that,a Special General Meeting was also held, a day later on Friday, when the Central Registrar order had become a widely known fact. As if respecting the Central Registrar’s order, the elections of Chairman and Vice-Chairman were postponed. What a generosity!
While the temerity of the RO was the talk of the town, the action by the Central Registrar was no less intriguing. Without giving any chance to the RO Joseph Baxla (Asst Registrar in Delhi govt), the office of Central Registrar suspended the election proceedings at the last minute. There was no show cause, no hearing, no chance for the RO to explain his decision. It was a final order from the Central Registrar which simultaneously suspended the election proceedings and appointed an Arbitrator to adjudicate within 60 days.
Old timers were aghast at the decision as they argued that every court offers a chance to opposite parties to explain their stands. They also pointed out that an order like stopping the polling midway is rare; as usually the court asks the RO to withhold the results, not the process.
Returning Officer, on his part cannot explain on what basis did he short-circuit the election process and elected and announced the results a day prior to the scheduled date. The RO announced the list of successful nominations on Thursday, the day when Central Registrar’s order came. But he did not stop there and announced the names of winners on that very day. In the election scheduled circulated earlier, the results were to be announced next day, that is Friday. But by Friday, RO oversaw conduct of a Special General Meeting of the newly elected BoDs!
On his part the Central Registrar would find it to be tough to convince why on a complaint of 19th February he acted right on the day the final list of successful nominations were to be published on 25th Feb, reinforcing once again the popular perception about bureaucratic lethargy. If at all he had to pass an order, why did he not allow a chance to the RO to explain his decision before passing judgement, is another charge against him.
It bears recall that Ramdass Sandhe, the outgoing Vice-Chairman had complained to the Central Registrar citing manipulation of the election process by T R Dora Prasad and B K Mishra in collusion with the Returning Officer.
Rishkesh Kashyap, one of the Directors of the outgoing board went to the extent of alleging that Dora asked each outgoing Director to pay Rs 1 lac to the RO and he would ensure their re-election. Kashyap claims to have evidence to prove his point.
Though one does not know the response of the office of the Central Registrar on this development but the list of winners announced by the RO includes
1) North Zone Mr. Abdul Rahman Dar-Jammu Kashmir, Mr. Mohit Sonkar-Punjab,
2) West Zone (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Div Daman) Mr. Prakash Lonare-Maharashtra
3 ) Central Zone Shri Dhaniram Raikwar-Madhya Pradesh, Shri Jagpujan Sahni-Uttar Pradesh
4) South Zone Shri Barri Chennappa-Andhra Pradesh, Shri Dr. S Madhegowda-Karnataka,
5) Shri T Prasad Dora-Odisha, Mr. Rakesh Kumar Nishad – Bihar
6) North East Zone Shri K. Nabhchandra Singh-Manipur, including Rajulal Debarma.
Indian Cooperative correspondent also had a tough time entering the Fishcopfed headquarters as there was clear instruction from the top to stop us from reporting the matter truthfully. The RO refused to utter a word when this correspondent asked him a volley of questions, after gaining a hard-earned entry. Obviously, he was not in a position to explain the anomaly!
-with input from Rohit Gupta