Soli Sorabjee steps down as IIC president, mantle passes to J&K governor NN Vohra

Distinguished jurist Soli J Sorabjee has stepped down as the president of the India International Centre, one of the premier cultural institutions in the country.

Sorabjee announced his decision at IIC’s annual general meeting on Friday evening, citing ‘personal reasons’, ET has learnt. Jammu and Kashmir governor NN Vohra has been appointed the new president. ET, in its Friday edition, had reported how some of IIC’s life trustees had objected to Sorabjee being re-elected president.

These members had also alleged irregularities in granting membership of the institution. On Friday, the AGM resolved to make the process of selecting members more transparent. The names of new members would henceforth be published in a diary and also uploaded on the IIC website, a senior member of the institution told ET.

The AGM was preceded by a meeting of the board of trustees, where Sorabjee was requested to step down in the interest of IIC, said the member cited above. The meeting “couldn’t have been more graceful, reflecting true values of IIC,” said former executive committee member Suhash Borker.

Sorabjee was re-elected president on December 26, 2016, for a five-year tenure starting January 2017, with the backing of retired justice BN Srikrishna, a life trustee, and Vipin Malik, an elected trustee. As explained in the ET report on Friday, IIC has five life trustees — Sorabjee, Vohra, Srikrishna, art historian Kapila Vatsyayan and former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.

Vatsyayan and Vohra had raised objections to Sorabjee’s election. Vohra, especially, had been strident in his opposition. On March 3, Vohra wrote to Sorabjee saying his election was “null and void” and in violation of IIC rules. “Dr Vatsyayan and I have been and continue to remain of the firm opinion that the sanctified tradition of appointing the President by consensus amongst the life trustees should not have been given up and that there was no basis for your ambition to be ‘Life President’,” he wrote.

Vohra again wrote to Sorabjee on June 14, saying, “A fresh assault on the legitimacy of your Presidency would, needless to say, further affect the reputation of the Centre.” On June 16, senior members of the India International Centre had sought to know why the list of members inducted in 2013-14 had not been put out in the public domain and why the alleged irregularities in the induction process were not being duly investigated.