IIC turns intense infighting centre after Soli Sorabjee’s tenure as President gets over

NEW DELHI: Sparks may fly at Friday’s annual general meeting of the India International Centre, said to be one of the country’s premier cultural institutions, over two issues: the tenure of Soli J Sorabjee as president and alleged irregularities in granting highly coveted memberships.

Two of the five life trustees of the prestigious centre have objected to Sorabjee’s continuation as president. NN Vohra, the Governor of J&K and one of the life trustees, has alleged that Sorabjee’s re-election as president was “null and void” and in violation of IIC rules.

The presidency of IIC is generally rotated among the life trustees every five years. However, Sorabjee was re-elected to the post at a special meeting on December 26, 2016, for a tenure starting January 2017, with the support of retired Justice BN Srikrishna, a life trustee, and Vipin Malik, an elected trustee.

When ET contacted Sorabjee for comment, he said, “My election was with an absolute majority and Justice BN Srikrishna and Vipin Malik, two of the trustees, supported my election.”

The IIC has five life trustees — Sorabjee, Vohra, Srikrishna, art historian Kapila Vatsyayan and former foreign secretary Shyam Saran. The two elected trustees on the board are LK Joshi, who replaced Malik, and Sachin Chaturvedi.

Saran was made a life trustee in May, in place of MGK Menon, who resigned and subsequently passed away. The tussle between Vohra and Sorabjee has been playing out through an exchange of emails, which ET has reviewed.

Vohra had written to Sorabjee on March 3, asking about his ambition to be life president of IIC. In another email to Sorabjee and copied to the trustees, Vohra said that he and Vatsyayan had consistently questioned the “move to give up the historical tradition of the President of the Centre being appointed by the Life Trustees, by rotation among themselves”.

“A fresh assault on the legitimacy of your Presidency would, needless to say, further affect the reputation of the Centre,” Vohra wrote on June 14, hinting the issue could be raised during the AGM scheduled on June 23.

The controversy has anguished some members. Karan Singh, a senior member of IIC and a former life trustee, said he was “deeply distressed at the developments”.

Some senior members sought fresh elections
“I am increasingly getting the impression that all this controversy is being engineered because of unfulfilled ambitions,” Srikrishna said on June 14, replying to Vohra.

“It would be imprudent for anyone, including Life Trustees, to attempt to go back on that election, even if it deviated from the informal convention.” Some senior IIC members had written to the board on May 18 demanding fresh elections.

Separately, senior IIC members, including some trustees, are miffed at alleged irregularities in the selection of members and the granting of full membership to politicians, judges and a large number of advocates. With Sorabjee, a former attorney general, at the helm of IIC, some members are concerned about conflict of interest in granting memberships to judges and advocates.

“This is akin to taking obligation from a member of the bar,” former law minister Shanti Bhushan said. Some IIC members, including trustees, told ET that while membership at IIC is not open to the general public, a number of influential persons have allegedly been inducted as permanent members. Sorabjee denied any irregularities in selecting members.

“It is transparent and the board of trustees and executive committee were taken into confidence and a list of members sent out to all of them. The list is also available with the secretary, IIC, for all members to see,” Sorabjee said, admitting that new members were inducted last year and this year.

Purshotam Goyal, the former Delhi speaker, cited a case of conflict of interest in granting membership to Binish Mehra, whose father, justice JK Mehra, an IIC member, was appointed inquiry officer only three days later to look into internal complaints.

Here, too, Sorabjee denied any wrongdoing. “Mehra’s membership was approved last year but kept pending, and for accounting purposes, his subscription was accepted in the current financial year.

This has nothing to do with his father being appointed as an inquiry officer,” Sorabjee said. Some permanent memberships were granted and most of them were spouse cases and overseas membership cases, which were converted to associate memberships, Sorabjee said.

In 2014, 17 people were made full members and of them, 13 were serving or retired judges and one was a Supreme Court advocate. The other three were Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani and Nirmala Sitharaman.

IIC typically inducts new members as associates who have to wait for seven years before they can apply for full membership. Exceptions are made in cases of individuals considered “eminent” or “useful”, a senior IIC member told ET.

Sorabjee clarified that the admissions committee had authorised the president to offer full membership if required, and this is done on merit and in cases where individuals can make a meaningful contribution towards IIC. About 20 high court judges and several advocates were given associate membership. “This was decided by the sub-group on law and judiciary,” said Sorabjee.