Executive committee still intact: NCC president

KATHMANDU, APR 28 -

Refuting the claims of two-third executive committee members, including the senior vice-president, that the Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) executive committee has been dissolved, President Suresh Kumar Basnet on Saturday said he is still the head of the chamber and the committee has not been dissolved.

“As the executive committee could not hold elections within its tenure as per the statute, the existing committee will work in caretaker status,” said Basnet.

The NCC plunged into the worst crisis in its six-decade-long history after two-third of its executive committee members led by senior vice-president Lok Manya Golchha abandoned their positions on “moral grounds”, claiming the executive committee has been automatically dissolved in mid-April as per the NCC statute.

Following months-long tussle that led to an indefinite postponement of its annual general meeting (AGM), two different cases have been registered in the Patan Appellate Court — one about the new membership issuance and membership renewal and another about the dissolution of the existing NCC executive committee.

The conflict between the two factions within the NCC surfaced after some 1,500 applications for new membership and membership renewal submitted on March 17, the closing date for filing the application, was not entertained by the NCC secretariat.

The NCC secretariat had refused to entertain the applications, saying that they were filed after office hours. But the Basnet faction said the rival faction influenced the secretariat not to accept the applications fearing of possible defeat in the election.

NCC General Secretary Kamalesh Kumar Agrawal had called the AGM on April 8, but President Basnet published a notice after a few days stating that the AGM and election dates had been postponed until further notice.

The Basnet faction also filed a case in the Patan Appellate Court, responding to which the court has issued a stay order to the NCC not to hold elections ignoring the applications.

Basnet said his faction’s future actions will be guided by the court’s verdict. “Although the opposing faction has been making propaganda and defaming NCC, I, along with my team, will wait until the court gives its final decision,” said Basnet at a press meet on Saturday.

The anti-Basnet faction has claimed as per the statute, the executive committee ceases to exist if the AGM is not held within mid-April every year and the whole authority of running the organisation goes to the administrative head. The group is led by 30 out of the 39 executive members, including General Secretary Kamalesh Agrawal, Treasurer Rajendra Aryal and immediate past president Surendra Bir Malakar, among others.

The Basnet faction, comprising seven executive committee members, had filed another case in the Patan court against the Golchha faction, stating the decision to dissolve the executive committee was “illegal” and “one-sided”.

Source: The Kathmandu Post