For the past few days,
Ferozeshah Kotla has been witnessing frenetic activity with the two warring
factions thrashing out details for the sports working committee elections that
are to be held by early August. Retired judges GP Thareja and Babu Lal, it
seems, are being as adamant and as matter-of-fact as they can. On the first day
of discussions, there was lot of agitation and Thareja put his foot down,
admonishing many senior officials.
The issue here is the sports
working committee’s battle with the executive committee and a sports committee
backed by them. The first step has already been taken --- a list of the 111
clubs is being put up on the board with their secretaries and/or voters
mentioned on it.
The trick question comes now
--- will all of these 111 clubs get to vote for a sports working committee?
The answer my dear readers
is --- it could be no.
As many as six clubs are
under dispute. While Ravi Brothers and Paragon Cricket Club are among the
disputed from the opposition camp, KN Colts, Roop Nagar, Rani Bagh and Young
association are those from the ruling Sports Working Committee faction. All but
Paragon have court cases pending due to the dispute in the ownership.
When the issue arrives as to
who will vote, then sparks could fly.
The other day Mr Rajeev Malhotra,
the owner of the Paragon spoke about the issue with his club. Malhotra was
pretty upset that despite his club not being among those under dispute, he, along
with Ravi Brothers, didn’t get any matches this season.
“I can’t say about others,
but my dispute looks to be a case of sports committee’s dadagiri. There is no dispute about the ownership about my club and
I have all the papers to prove that everything is in order,” says Mr Malhotra.
“We were promised that we’ll
get matches after January 14, 2015 but we were not given any game.”
It is surprising that Mr
Malhotra’s travails began since 2013 when he had decided to end the long
loyalty with the senior officials of the current sports committee. His separation
from Mr Vinod Tihara helped him get into a ruling faction for one year, before
Mr Tihara’s committee was back and his club ostracised.
“Last year I lost. I had
campaigned against Mr Tihara, so obviously I never expected him to look at me
favourably. But I don’t understand why my club is being penalised and not
allowed to play,” says Mr Malhotra.
The sports working committee
says that there are issues about the ownership and secretary-ship of the club.
It should be noted that Mr Malhotra’s brother Mr Sanjeev Malhotra had been a
previous secretary of the club.
Anyway, the interesting
thing that happened is yet to come and will shock all of you. As the rule goes,
a private club is supposed to pay 750 rupees as annual subscription fees
whereas an institutional club is supposed to pay 5000 rupees.
While many of the clubs had
paid the subscription fees through cheques, it has been learnt that the sports
committee failed to encash those cheques. As a result of it, most of the
cheques lapsed. Both Paragon and Ravi Brothers weren’t given the chance to pay
subscription and hence were away from the league. With the change in DDCA
management in a December 9, 2014 meeting, when Mr Sneh Bansal was removed and
Mr Chetan Chauhan took charge (as part of the KCM --- Khanna-Chauhan-Manchanda
faction), Paragon’s Mr Malhotra and Ravi
Brothers’ Mr Ashok Sharma ensured that their clubs paid their subscription with
the party at the top looking at them favourably. They deposited the cheques and
got them cleared. So, in a way, the money from only these two clubs was cleared
at that stage whereas the others were officially out.
As the news goes now, so far
only 30-35 clubs’ cheques have been cleared with the receipts.
In fact, to the shock
of everyone, one of the judges appointed as the election officer raised the
issue with Mr Tihara, the convenor of the sports committee. He asked as to why
the cheques have become invalid and lapsed. The judge has issued an order
asking for fresh cheques from clubs which should be cleared by July 20. 
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