SCBA: Executive Committee opposes “unilateral decisions” by President, Vice-President

The members of the Executive Committee (EC) of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) seem to be at loggerheads. The EC has called for a meeting today to deliberate upon the issue of alleged unilateral decisions taken by the President and the Vice President of the Association..The members of the EC passed a resolution yesterday calling for a meeting of all the members of the Committee including the President of the Association Rakesh Khanna and the Vice President Jitender Mohan Sharma. The resolution has condemned the letter issued on July 19 by Khanna and Sharma through which the two of them “arbitrarily dissolved all the sub-committees except the Finance Committee”..In this letter, Khanna, “in the exercise of his powers under the SCBA Rules” and with the concurrence of Sharma, had decided to dissolve as many as 15 sub-committees. These were constituted by the EC through its unanimous resolutions passed in December 2018 and January 2019..In the resolution passed by the EC yesterday, it is stated that the affairs of the SCBA are regulated by the Supreme Court Bar Association Rules of which Rule 10 provides for the affairs of the Association to be managed by the elected EC. The grievance of the members of the EC is that despite Rule 10 which gives power to the entire EC over sub-committees, the decision to dissolve all but one of them was taken by Khanna and Sharma without taking other members of the EC on board..The EC resolution states that this is “devoid of due process of law” and adds,.“The decision is not just contrary to the provisions of Rule 10 but it also gives rise to legal travesty as even the assumed direction has been used without recording any reason. The same demonstrates arbitrariness and undemocratic way of functioning.”.The resolution states that this decision taken jointly by the President and the Vice President is unlawful unless placed before the entire EC and approved by a majority. Until a majority decision is passed, the sub-committees will continue to function as they did prior to the July 19 letter..[Read SCBA President’s letter].[Read the SCBA EC Resolution]