Volleyball Federation of India (VFI) President, Chaudhary Avdhesh Kumar has suspended ten members of the sports body for attending an invalid core committee meeting on February 22nd.
Kumar used his constitutional powers to suspend CEO K Murugan, EVP Rajkumar and Treasurer Ranjit Roy Chaudhary along with 7 other state unit affiliate members, who attended a meeting called by Executive Vice President Rajkumar.
The meeting was declared unconstitutional, as it was not called by the Secretary General or by the President or by any VFI member who had given prior notice for such a meeting in accordance with the constitution of VFI. Further, the President had also dissolved the core committee of the VFI on February 20th, and disallowed any such meeting.
Since a few VFI officials and state representatives still went ahead to meet in Delhi and later released some information regarding Indian Volleyball League, without the permission of the President or the Executive Committee, their actions were found to be unconstitutional and against the spirit of India volleyball at large. All the decisions taken in the meeting are also declared null and void.
The suspended members are also accused of attempting to sabotage the IV League logo release ceremony that was done by the President in the presence of other VFI officials and states representatives on February 24th in a city hotel here.
To give the suspended members a fair chance, the President has constituted a 5-member "Disciplinary Committee" and called an Emergent Executive Committee meeting to be held in Nagpur on March 3rd.
Suspended members are expected to file in their written replies to the 'disciplinary committee' by March 2nd. The disciplinary committee will then submit a report to the Emergent Executive Committee with the recommendations.
Interestingly, Kumar followed the due procedure laid out in the VFI constitution to approve the proposal from a reputed sports marketing firm before launching the three IV Leagues logos.
Kumar said: "I have always worked according to the constitution of VFI. The primary objective of my actions as the President is to uplift the status of volleyball in India, protect interest of current and ex-players, officials, state units.
"In the last 3 years the status of Indian Volleyball has improved and the governance of the federation has become more player centric. Apparently, a section of the federation does not like this transparent shift and hence they want to create confusion.
"I am very clear that if anybody comes in the way to improve the financial status of players, state units and federation, a very strong action as per the constitution shall be taken against him/her," he added.
