Calm after storm in AICF as new office-bearers check in

Chennai : After the storm -- the elections, charges, and counter-charges -- there is calm at the All India Chess Federation (AICF), the apex body for Indian chess. A new set of office-bearers has been elected unanimously to manage the affairs of the AICF till 2027, and it will be interesting to see what steps it takes on the earlier decision to go for a forensic audit of the Federation's accounts.

Though the election results were a foregone conclusion -- only 15 nominations for 15 posts were filed -- the formal announcement was made by the two poll officials, Justice G.S. Sistani (retd), and Justice Rang Nath Pandey (retd), at the AICF General Body meeting held in Delhi on Sunday.

As reported by IANS earlier, Nitin Narang, Dev A. Patel, and Dharmendra Kumar have been elected to the posts of President, Secretary, and Treasurer, respectively.

The six Vice Presidents are Anil Kumar Raizada, Grandmaster (GM) Dibyendu Barua, Raghvendra Singhania, D.P. Anantha, Mahaveer Ranka, and Repo Ronya. The Joint Secretaries are Kandarpa Kalita, Prasanta Kundu, Soibam Mangijao Singh, H. Lalthlamuana, Sanjeev Thakur, and Manish Kumar.

For the second time in succession, the managing board of the AICF does not have any representation from Tamil Nadu, which is a major force in Indian chess.

With allegations that the polls were not conducted in line with the National Sports Development Code coming from several quarters, the matter may go to the Delhi High Court.

At the General Body meeting held on Sunday, some members objected to the proposal to ratify the decision taken at the AICF's urgent General Body meeting held on December 28 in Guwahati.

“The minutes of the Guwahati meeting were not circulated. So, some members had asked for the minutes first,” the official of one of the state associations told IANS.

Former Interim Secretary of the AICF, Ajeet Kumar Verma, had told IANS that the chess body plans to conduct a forensic audit of its accounts by hiring an external auditor, as some of the papers were reportedly missing from its office.

"We found some papers and inventories were missing from the AICF office. So it was decided to appoint an external auditor to audit the accounts. If need be, a forensic audit will also be carried out. The proposed audit will also check the payments made to various people," Verma told IANS.

The decision to appoint another audit firm was taken at the AICF's urgent General Body meeting in Guwahati. The meeting was called to discuss matters relating to the office-bearer's election, the financial health of the AICF, various court cases, the formation of a legal committee, and the appointment of the law firm, Prout Solicitors LLP.

Allegations of financial scams were levelled against some former AICF officials in connection with the funds relating to the Chess Olympiad held in Chennai in 2022.

“The Olympiad expenditure budget allocated to the AICF by the Tamil Nadu government was Rs 31 crore. We had to claim money by submitting the bills. About Rs 26-27 crore was claimed by the AICF after submitting the necessary bills. The expense account was also audited by the Tamil Nadu government,” Naresh Sharma, former Treasurer of AICF, told IANS.

A five-member AICF committee comprising Vipnesh Bharadwaj, Bhavesh Patel, Sanjay K. Chadha, Anantharam, and Sharma was entrusted with the task of issuing work orders, releasing payments etc.

On papers and inventories reportedly missing from the AICF office, Sharma said they were kept in safe custody so that they aren't destroyed to implicate some officials. “The documents are not with me. They are in a safe place. They will be returned to the new office-bearers. The new management has been informed,” Sharma said.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)