The Bangalore Turf Club has slipped into hard times because of a conspiracy of circumstances resulting in the formation of a committee which has no vision at all. The committee has in the last one year brought strife in every sphere of activity.

The Chairman of the Club Harimohan Naidu has not been able to lead the club in this hour of crisis. He has allowed things to drift and is dictated by a section of the militant members some of whom are his strong supporters. This makes his task more difficult as he cannot afford to displease his supporters.

Just to fix the previous committee members, a special enquiry committee was formed. The committee recommended expulsion of about 11 members under Article 16, one of them for as silly a reason as taking the club`s letter to the Chief Minister on behalf of the committee because the committee had failed to get an audience. The enquiry committee found fault with the appointment of S Nirmal Prasad as the CEO. The matter was challenged by a few members in the court and the court upheld the appointment as being in order. Even the certification by the judiciary was not enough for the enquiry committee which thought it was above everything. The enquiry committee also recommended expulsion of some of the previous committee members who did not actively participate in the committee meetings nor did they do anything damaging to the club. The sanctity of the composition of the committee itself was questioned as many of them had already pre-judged the issue going by their active participation in the formation of the enquiry committee. The composition of the enquiry committee itself kept changing as some of the members were disqualified from continuing.

The Article 16 states: ``Any member acting in a manner likely to bring discredit to the club may be expelled by the vote of a majority of not less than two-thirds of the club members present in person at a General Meeting specially convened for that purpose of which not less than twenty-five club members shall be present in person.`` The Stewards have powers to act on any member for any racing offence but not for any other reason. It is difficult to say whether the actions of the majority of those who have been recommended to be expelled come under the category of bringing discredit to the club.

The special general body meeting convened on September 22 was flawed as it was done without following proper procedure. The meeting was adjourned even as the club spent lakhs of rupees to prevent the court from staying the proceedings. So much of money went to waste in organising the meeting. Who is to be held accountable for the loss and lack of application?

A new memorandum asking the Managing Committee to convene a special general body meeting to take up the issue of expulsion has been given. The content of the letter does not speak highly of the current chairman. The members have said that the Special General Body Meeting should be presided by a former chairman to be elected for this purpose and the current chairman should step aside for this purpose. ``We, therefore, would like to requisition an EGM of the Club and ensure that it is conducted smoothly and on democratic lines. For this purpose, we suggest that while the MC should arrange for the conduct of the meeting, it should be chaired by a past Chairman, to be elected at the EGM to ensure fair play. The current Chairman should step down as provided in Article 24 for this purpose. There is already a precedent in this regard,`` the requisition states. The requisition for the Special General Body has been signed by 80 odd members. So many members have expressed their lack of confidence in the Chairman which should make his position untenable.``

The letter further states: ``The extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of the Club on 22nd September 2018 was adjourned by the Chairman in such an abrupt manner that it left many Members wondering what was happening, to say the least. A few Members monopolised the microphones for about 20 minutes and raised what they claimed was a point of order. There were also questions whether the Special Enquiry Report (SER) was adopted by the Managing Committee (MC), whether a show cause notice had been issued to the Members proposed to be expelled, how such a harsh punishment is meted out for omissions and commissions not grave enough, etc. These same issues and other technical ones were raised before the Court by two Members in order to get a stay on the holding of the EGM. The Hon`ble Court, after hearing both sides at length over two days, dismissed the request (stay/injunction) of the Petitioners. Despite the Court order, for which the Club would have spent lakhs as the legal fee before any other Member could raise their point of view, the Chairman adjourned the EGM accepting the point of order raised, ignoring even the Court`s decision, to the surprise of most Members.``

In another development, another group of 56 members submitted a requisition for convening an EOGM to amend Article 16 of the Association. The Special Enquiry Committee sought the expulsion of 11 members under Article 16. The members have sought amendment of the same to provide provision for varying degree of punishments for those guilty of various acts of commission and omission instead of a blanket removal of membership as is the case in the Articles. Another resolution also seeks to nullify the recommendations of the enquiry committee as it suffers from a lack of jurisdiction, procedural infirmities and inherent bias. The last resolution is to seek permission from the government for the amendment of the Articles 16 as this is required under Article 60 of the association. There are several members who have signed both the requisitions thereby making the resolutions defective and non-implementable because of their contradiction.

Interestingly, Article 60 of the Articles of the Association was forcibly introduced by the government following the infamous Govardhan, Certain Smile controversy. It may be recalled that Certain Smile had won the race start to finish in the year 1985 with Govardhan finishing a tame second. The jockey of Govardhan put a frivolous objection against Certain Smile for interference. The objection was upheld despite protest by the stipendiary stewards. Ramakrishna Rao and Kumar Siddanna voted for upholding the objection while Venugopal Naidu and K S Prasad voted against the objection.

The objection was upheld through the casting vote of Ramakrishna Rao who was the chairman. The incident raised a lot of dust with a police enquiry also ordered. The government, based on the police report which found that the decision of the Stewards was taken to suit their own and that of the owners` betting interests, recommended for banning racehorse owning members from becoming Stewards.

The current Steward A C Satish Chandra was an owner of Govardhan. This incident changed the face of racing in Bangalore. Apart from forcing the club to amend the Articles of Association to ban racehorse owners from becoming Stewards, the government got Article 60 incorporated so that the club did not amend the articles again at an opportune time. Sydney Moses was the trainer of Govardhan.

The club thus has lost the power to make any changes to the Articles of Association even it is for a genuine reason. The club`s freedom was compromised thanks to the misuse of power. Such members continue to rule the roost and even propose to expel people for the mere act of taking the Managing Committee`s letter to the Chief Minister for permission to expand membership. Even as strong an offence as assaulting a racing official by a member was not enough for him to be thrown out of membership but the mere use of a bad word in the heat of the moment is enough for a recommendation for expulsion of membership. Nothing can be more absurd than this.

The Bangalore Turf Club members are fighting a battle against themselves when the sport is facing a crisis due to the financial instability brought about because of the steep imposition of GST. This is proving to be a deeply subversive affair. The focus thus should have been on tackling this issue instead of wanting to expel a few members because of personal grievances. The resolution to expel a few past office-bearers is not going to serve any purpose because it will only vitiate the atmosphere further and also threaten the smooth functioning of the club forever.