Plot thickens, Nijhar says MIED part of MIC

Contrary to the charge that the MIC's education body's board of trustees never convened any meeting since its establishment decades ago, there were about 200, according to former party vice-president KS Nijhar.

He was responding to former MIC treasurer-general M Mahalingam's statement yesterday that the trustees of the Maju Institute of Education Development (MIED) had never held a meeting in the 24 years of its existence.

Mahalingam, who was one of the institutes's founders, claimed that the MIED board was dominated by high-profile MIC leaders, including MIC president S Samy Vellu as chairman, seven appointed trustees, including himself with 25 other listed members.

"MIED is supposed to be in the hands of the trustees. Any changes must only be done by the trustees who should decide on its future.

"Don't waver from the objective of the establishment. MIED is a wing of MIC. They should be reminded that they owe their position to the people. They should protect the institute," Mahalingam had said.

He said the 33 board members should know their responsibilities since they had also played a role in establishing the entity.

MIC wields total control

However, Nijhar said that it was ‘factually incorrect' as decisions related to MIED were discussed by MIC's central working committee members.

"MIED is the education arm of MIC, MIC controls the appointments of members and trustees as well as the management and the operations of MIED," said Nijhar.

"Therefore,rather than have separate formal meetings of MIED members or trustees, all major decisions relating to MIED were discussed and decided upon in the MIC's central working committee (CWC) meetings," he explained.

Nijhar added the MIED board of trustees and the CWC members were almost always present.

He said that the CWC meetings were also "deemed as MIED meetings".

'Spirit and letter of law'

This practice, he said has been taking place for the last 25 years and matters concerning MIED have been tabled and discussed at the party's annual general meeting.

"The matters decided upon were then followed up by umpteen circular resolutions (deemed as equivalent to decisions taken at formal MIED meetings) or acted upon by MIED management," he said.

Moreover, Nijhar added that the "joint meetings" better portrayed MIC's aspirations and MIED operations.

"These better reflected the spirit and the letter of the laws relating to MIED than the narrow very interpretation given in the headlines," said Nijhar.

Asked to comment on MIC president S Samy Vellu's insistence that MIED was a separate entity from the the party and since it was a separate entity, the MIC had nothing to do with it, Nijhar said:

"As far as I am concerned I am not commenting on anything speculative... (the matter of Samy Vellu taking over MIED when he leaves MIC) has not been brought to the board."