RECONCILIATION AGREEMENT

1.(a) That the IACS will withdraw its appeal to the Charity Commissioner, but only after there is an agreement signed by both parties on the way forward, notably stating that no new legal procedures will be launched by either the IACS or Prof. O. P. Juneja.

1.(b) That the IACS and Prof. O. P. Juneja will use their good offices to try to persuade the members involved in various other legal procedures to halt these procedures in order to increase the prospects of a successful resolution.

1.(c) Notwithstanding point 1(b), the application No. 30/03 dated 8.5.03 pending before the Assistant Charity Commissioner Vadodara regarding the alleged financial misappropriation of Rs. 30,000/- by the co-ordinators of the Canadian Studies Workshop held at Delhi University, South Campus in 1993 may be investigated by the present members of the Reconciliation Committee.

2. . That, once the appeal is withdrawn, the original constitution as registered with the office of the Joint Charity Commissioner, Vadodara will be recognised as being in force.

3. That, notwithstanding point 2., it is agreed that the current Executive Committee of the IACS will remain into place until the next elections are held (understood to be under a new constitution which will fix its rules and timeline).

4. That, also notwithstanding point 2., it is understood that all actual Life (voting) Members of the IACS will be recognised as such for the sake of the next General Body Meeting which will be expected to vote on a new constitution.

5. A mutually convenient location will be found to hold the next General Body Meeting.

6. That the invitation to the General Body Meeting will be co-signed by the IACS President and Prof. Juneja, (in an individual capacity).

7. That any allegation/appearance of misuse of funds is a serious matter, but that such issues should be de-linked from the current reconciliation efforts, because they are not immediately relevant to these efforts. Ideally, these issues should be looked into by the next Executive Committee, preferably under mandate by the General Body of the IACS.

8. The office of IACS as registered with the Joint Charity Commissioner’s office, Vadodara shall be the coordinating office of the IACS, with Prof. O. P. Juneja as Coordinator, until a new Board of Trustees is elected (understood to be under a new constitution, which will f ix the rules and timeline of this process).

9. The objections lodged with the banks will be withdrawn by Prof. O. P. Juneja

10. At the suggestion of the Canadian High Commission, and based on a common understanding that this is the next step in the current reconciliation process, the Committee will look into the framing of a new constitution for the Indian Association for Canadian Studies, in consultation with experts. This new constitution will then be proposed for the consideration of all voting members in compliance with the IACS’s pre- existing constitution. More details will be communicated to IACS Members in due course.


“Without Prejudice”


Sd/- O. P. Juneja Sd/- R. K. Dhawan
Place: Baroda
Date: 4 September 2007.

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LETTER TO LIFE MEMBERS

Dear Life Member of IACS,

I write this in response to many inquiries that I have received regarding the current status of the Indian Association for Canadian Studies that all of us have created, nurtured and developed from its inception in 1985 till the last Annual General Body meeting held at Jammu University in February 2007 when all its activities came to a halt.

1. Court Order:
As some of you know that the then Presidents/Secretaries of IACS had filed ‘Change Reports’ in the office of the Assistant Charity Commissioner, Vadodara in 1997 and 2002 asking for change in the names of the Trustees and also the New Constitution accepted in 1995 in Pune. The Charity Commissioner vide its Order Number – 51 dated 22/03/2006 rejected all the change reports and passed the following Order: “This Change Report is rejected. Action should be taken to record this Order on the PTR and the concerned parties be informed about his Order” (for full version please visit our blog at: http://iacsvadodara.blogspot.com). This Order thus has the following implications:
• No activities of IACS including the new constitution, the elections, the office-bearers, and members of the Executive Committee are legal.
• The Trustees of IACS are the nine founding trustees.
• Only the initial trustees from Baroda can operate the academic, administrative, financial and other activities IACS.
• There already exists a bank account of the initial body and all money in whichever account of the IACS needs to be deposited and transferred there.

2. Consequences of the Order:
a) Consequently, a copy of the Order was sent to the then President, who did not conduct elections for the new EC at Jammu Conference in February 2007 and a Reconciliation Committeewas constituted by the General Body.
b) Subsequently, the Funding Agency in Canada has diverted the disbursement of their funds through other agencies and not through the prorogued IACS-EC. Some of your projects might have benefited from this.

3. Appeal to Joint Charity Commissioner, Vadodara:
An Appeal No. 38/2006 was filed against the above Order of the Assistant Charity Commissioner by President IACS in the office of the Joint Charity Commissioner, Vadodara in June 2006. As the authorized Trustee, IACS, I filed my reply in August 2006. It is still pending before the learned judge for a hearing.

4. Reconciliation Committee:
In order to find a way out of this situation created by the Appeal, the General Body of the IACS constituted a Reconciliation Committee at the Annual General Body Meeting held during the Annual Conference at Jammu University in February 2007. The members of the Committee are: Dr. R. K. Dhawan, Dr. Vimal Dhawan, Professor U. M. Nanavati and Dr. D. K. Pabby (convenor). This committee prepared a Reconciliation Agreement between the IACS and the Trustees. The Committee then approached me for an out of court settlement of the matter. Though there were major concerns from some members about the mismanagement of funds and other issues related to non deposit of the Life Membership Fees in the corpus fund, I went out of the way to accept the recommendations of the Reconciliation Committee so as to put IACS on track and signed the Reconciliation Agreement, already signed by Dr. R. K. Dhawan, on 04 September 2007. I gave a copy to my lawyer to submit it to the Charity Commissioner’s office. However, the EC was reluctant to accept the Agreement.

Following this reluctance from the EC, Canadian High Commission called a couple of meetings in Delhi. In order to resolve this issue finally, a special meeting was called by the Funding Agency on 31 October 2007 in Canadian High Commission in Delhi. This meeting was attended by all the members of the EC, representatives of SICI, representatives of Canadian High Commission and the representatives of the Canadian government in Ottawa, besides me.
It was unanimously decided to send the copy of the Agreement to the office of the Joint Charity Commissioner in Vadodara without any further delay. I would like to thank the High Commission, the Funding Agency and all those involved in this effort to solve this issue ‘out of court’.

However, the EC has refused to accept the Agreement and has not submitted the same to the Joint Charity Commissioner as an out of court settlement of the Appeal No. 38/2006 pending before him.

This action raises a basic issue: how can EC adjudicate on the Agreement that has been done following a General Body Resolution passed at AGM held at Jammu University? I may emphasise that this right vests with the GB alone, as it is the bigger body. Moreover, the term of office of the present EC has expired and is therefore defunct. How can a defunct or prorogued EC decide on an issue already settled by the General Body ?

I must bring it to your attention that the facts stated above may be verified from the members of the Reconciliation Committee and all others who attended these meetings. As some of you are aware I have posted all the documents on my blog at: http://iacsvadodara.com . Please visit it for more information.

As a concerned member of IACS, I am sure you do not wish the Association to stay in this state with a defunct/prorogued EC. I shall therefore appreciate a response in support of the Agreement so that we start the process of revitalizing our Association which has helped us in furthering our careers and scholarship in the field of Canadian Studies.

Please respond either by replying to his email or emailing me at: omjuneja@gmail.com . You may talk to me at: (0265) 2793366 (landline) or 91-9898438201 (mobile).

Yours in IACS, Om P. Juneja