Adding fuel to the fire, SS Kanoria, a senior member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) has dashed off a letter to past presidents of the apex organisation suggesting that it should appoint Kumarmangalam Birla of the Aditya Birla group or Kolkata-based industrialist Saroj Poddar or MA Alagappan of the Murugappa group in place of AC Muthiah as senior vice president.
Kanoria, who wrote the letter a few days ago, has contended that Muthiah, who hardly attended any of the chamber meetings is not fit for the post. Instead, a person of stature should be appointed at a time when the organisation is celebrating its platinum jubilee year.
Kanoria, a former president and part of the disbanded committee of elders, has also suggested that a supervisory committee having past presidents along with new blood as its members should guide the organisation instead of the existing executive committee.
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Kanoria's letter comes close on the heels of the resignation of his son RV Kanoria from the Ficci vice-presidentiship in protest against Muthiah's inclusion as senior vice-president. If Muthiah had not come back to become senior vice-president, RV Kanoria would have been elevated to the same post and become eligible for the chamber's presidentship next year.
Top sources in Ficci, however, have pointed out that under the constitution, a person has to be a member of the executive committee for five years before he becomes a vice-president and Birla does not qualify under those rules. It has also stated that Poddar cannot be appointed as RS Lodha, the new president, is also from the eastern region and the top slot has to be rotated amongst regions. Similarly, Muthiah is the senior-most from the south.
Kanoria has also hit out at Ficci for not honouring a decision taken by the committee of elders - which included all past presidents - in November 1996 wherein, it had clearly laid down succession plans for the future presidents of Ficci. The choice was based on Ficci's convention of rotation of the president from the various regions of India which Kanoria claims has been broken.
In various letters, Kanoria has cited the minutes of the 1996 meeting of the elders committee in which GP Goenka of the Duncans group representing the west would be followed by AC Muthiah representing the south, Raju Kanoria representing the north and chartered accountant RS Lodha representing the east as the president of the apex chambers.
Kanoria says that that after AC Muthiah's decision to quit because of his preoccupation with cricket as the chairman of the Board for Control of Cricket in India, Ficci elected Chirayu Amin of Alembic Chemicals (who was not in the original list) representing the west instead of Kanoria as president of the association.
The chance of the northern region was again put in abeyance when Lodha who represents the east, according to Kanoria, superseded Kanoria. This was followed again by Muthiah representing the south requesting, and Ficci executive committee accepting Muthiah's request to takeover as senior vice-president of the chamber again superseding Kanoria who was to be elevated from vice-president to senior vice-president this year.
As a consequence, Kanoria resigned as the vice-president of Ficci, like his father SS Kanoria.
Ficci points out that there is no constitutional validity of the committee of elders' 1996 meeting, and the decisions have been followed by numerous other meetings of the senior members were the existing structure to bring in Amin followed by Lodha and then Kanoria had been accepted. Kanoria was to become president in 2003-4 and he had accepted the decision, according to senior Ficci officials. Sources also point out that attempts to patch up with Kanoria were made by elder statesmen Charat Ram. But these did not fructify.