DPS Society lands in yet another controversy
for deciding such matters. Hussain’s unceremonious exit has baffled many in the Society as he had been with the DPS family for over 41 years, of which 31 were spent as principal, including 17 years at Mathura Road. “You do not treat someone like Hussain in such a shabby manner and he certainly deserved to have been properly informed of his removal,” a member of the Society said.
Sources close to Hussain said that the principal was expecting to hear from the Society as he had written to it and to the managing committee about a month and a half ago that he was eligible for a twoyear extension. However, no one cared to inform him and all of a sudden he was told by Raval and Taneja on 30 June that he must hand over charge without any delay. Observing propriety and not resorting to a confrontation, Hussain bowed out of the institution, knowing fully well that a decision in this regard should have been taken by the managing committee at a formal meeting and he should have been officially informed well on time.
To add insult to injury, Hussain, who is also the founder principal of DPS, Bhillai and DPS, Kuwait, besides serv- ing the longest tenure after the legendary Din Dayal as the Mathura Road principal, has been asked to vacate his official bungalow by 16 August, although he had sought three months’ time to move residence. Efforts to contact Society secretary Ranjiv Taneja proved futile as he neither picked up his cell phone nor responded to an SMS sent to him.
The Society, which has come under fire for several arbitrary decisions in the past year and a half, has also issued a show cause notice to Sharda Nayak, one of the senior life members, in a move being seen by many others as an attempt to ease her out. Nayak has been openly challenging the manner in which the Society has been functioning. She had questioned the role of the chairman in changing the terms and conditions of franchises and of misleading the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) about the true facts. Some months ago, Nayak had, through signatures of members obtained by circulating the file, had proclaimed herself as the chairperson, while Shunglu was abroad, leading to a confrontation between her supporters and those who are in power.
In a related development having repercussions for the Society, the president of the Dipsites Association (old students Organisation), Rajiv Soni, along with Louis Fernandes Khurshid, wife of former Union minister and former Society president Salman Khurshid, has floated the DPS World Foundation with the aim of setting up schools. According to Rajiv Bhatnagar, also a founding trustee, the Foundation was formed as the Society was not responding adequately to the challenges before it and because of which the standard of a large number of schools was going down. He said that most of the Society members had nothing to do with the DPS family and were using the platform for the advancing of their own interests. Therefore, it was felt that a Foundation to connect with the extended DPS family should be created and its role should include running schools at par with the original standards of DPS. To begin with, the Foundation may take over some sick schools and give them the DPS brand and guidelines to resuscitate them. The details of the DPS world infrastructure would be shortly available on DPSWORLD FOUNDATION. ORG so that associates “could grasp the torch of DPS and light up a million minds”.
Meanwhile, the functioning of the Delhi Public School Society, which has been caught in a series of controversies, is also under the scrutiny of the Registrar of Societies, Delhi government. A detailed complaint against the alleged irregularities in the Society was been sent to the Registrar by Sharada Nayak, who has, in the past too raised questions about the manner in which certain decisions had been taken. Nayak has asked the Registrar to appoint an administrator to oversee the affairs of the Society where ever since the election of the present chairman, V.K. Shunglu by one vote, something or the other has been making the news for wrong reasons.
Sources in the Registrar of Society’s office said that the Society has limited powers as most of the matters have to be addressed by courts. However, if there is any serious violation of the rules and regulations, the Registrar could take cognisance of the offence and recommend action.
Nayak had, in a three-page letter of complaint, alleged that there were a number of violations in the rules. Listing some of the instances, she cited that the reluctance on part of the present management to take into confidence all life members had resulted in arbitrary decisions. The arbitrary decisions include the induction of two life members through a questionable process and despite the fact that none of them ever applied for the job. The two — former Cabinet Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi and journalist Rahul Singh — were inducted by circulating a letter and none of them was introduced to other members at the time.
She accused the management of following an irregular method of recruiting the staff in some of the DPS schools. There was no duly constituted selection committee and most of the selections were being done in an arbitrary manner by the chairman himself.
She also raised the issue of the controversial election of V.K. Shunglu, who subsequently refused to accept the recommendations of the high powered Disputes Redressal Committee (DRC) comprising Salman Khurshid, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Ravi Vira Gupta that favoured a re-election.
She offered that she would be too glad to be present in person to explain to the Registrar what all wrong was happening in the Society, which seems to have deviated from the noble objectives it was meant to follow.
The reference to the chairman’s letter pertained to the one written 14 months ago by V.K. Shunglu, in his capacity as a member accusing two important functionaries of corruption. The letter has come to haunt him. The issue had cropped up during a meeting of the Society held on 6 December, where copies of the letter dated 6 October 2013 addressed to Ashok Chandra, the then chairman were circulated by an aggrieved member, causing deep embarrassment to the members of the working committee.
Shunglu, in the letter, while asking the management to withhold the payments of Saluja Builders, a prominent real estate group, had charged that a top functionary of the Society had fixed deposits in the excess of Rs 25 crore in his accounts and the principal of a prominent DPS school was unable to explain to incometax authorities how he had acquired multiple flats in the capital. He had alleged that the real estate group had been a conduit for the “financial aspirations” of the two persons involved in the irregular dealings. Therefore, they should refund the money after proper verification of the quality and value of the work done.
Ironically, the functionary is also a part of the team headed by Shunglu, who took over as the chairman following his controversial victory by a single vote for the post, after it became known that the vote cast by eminent journalist Khushwant Singh in favour of Ashok Chandra earlier last year had gone missing, leading to demands of a reelection.
Considered to be a man of unimpeachable integrity, Shunglu has resisted the re-election demand and for many months did not even convene a meeting of the full Society to resolve the issue. In the meantime, Ashok Chandra resorted to legal recourse and has moved the judiciary. The matter is pending in the Delhi High Court.
The Delhi Public School Society, which runs more than 100 schools in India and abroad including DPS, Mathura Road, DPS, R.K. Puram and DPS, Chandigarh, has been courting one controversy after the other. Several weeks ago, Nayak had sought clarifications from the chairman on whether the agreements the Society signed with some franchises recently were conforming to the copy submitted to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). And if not, the implications were of a very grave nature and could amount to gross irregularities on part of the Society, thereby making it prima facie into a case of fraud.