Chamber of Commerce declared unauthorised

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Nov. 7: Nine rebel members of the Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce have criticised the present activities of their body and called a Press conference today to brief them about the “unauthorised, unprincipled conductors by any way (s) of the traders’ body.” They have received an order from Malda second court, dated 9 October 2007, according to which the body is unauthorised. Terming the Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce as an unauthorised body the rebel leaders said: “The election procedure was wrong and its voter's list was full of ghost voters.” Expressing unhappiness over the activities of the present ruling leaders they claimed that a group of present leaders of this body are involved in corruption and are saving themselves with the help of the district administration by sponsoring various programmes of the district administration. The 9 rebel members are Mr Ujjal Majumdar, Mr Anjan Paul, Mr Hemendra Saha, Mr Samiran Barman, Mr Gopal Barman, Mr Koushik Saha, Mr SA Kaji, Mr Sukumar Saha, Mr Krishna Saha and others according to the (invitation) letter circulated to the Press. The present district secretary of the Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce Mr Jayanta Kundu brushed aside their allegation and said: “Mr Hemendra Saha was the former president of this body. He was elected twice and has been selected for the past six years, illegally. We have planned to lodge a complaint against Mr Saha with the police on charges of keeping important files and documents of the Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce in his house,” he said. He also alleged that Mr Anjan Paul who he was also the president of Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce for two years without winning the election. The Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce was registered under Company Act during their tenure and we were elected with the permission of the district court when they tried to stop Malda Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce election last year by managing an injunction order from the lower court. The present president had secured 750 votes out of 950 voters but Mr Anjan Paul got only 125 ones, Mr Kundu claimed.