Apparel House Exporters Association’s Rajiv Kapoor has written to Ministry of Textile (MoT) and Ministry of Commerce blaming violation of statutory provision, provisions under Clause 2.92 of FTP 2015-20 related to elections in EPCs, serious malpractices and irregularities in the election of various posts of the members of the EC (AEPC) proposed to be held on 18 December, 2015. In this letter, seeking urgent action, Rajiv says that according to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs vide notification no. GSR 466 (E), dated 5 June, 2015, has exempted Section 8 Companies (i.e. not for profit companies) from the applicability of Section 160 of the Act, thus ensuring that any member interested to contest election in the AEPC meeting is not required to deposit an amount of Rs. 1 lakh. This statutory violation has taken place when there are Government Nominee Directors in the Board of AEPC of the MoT.
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Rajiv, who brought this matter to Delhi High Court, has also raised a strong question in letter that AEPC is not providing the minutes of its 236th EC meeting held on 6th November. It is being said that this meeting had important discussions related to AGM of AEPC. The letter also states as the scrutinizer is required to conduct fair elections and although the MoT has appointed Under Secretary (Exports) as the scrutinizer for Electronic Voting System (EVS) scheduled for the first time, there are hardly any power vested in him. The scrutinizer has been vested with no power to reject the casting votes. “The first and foremost step to abolish “proxies” which MoT in conjunction with MoC could easily do immediately,” the letter mentions.
