On the 30th of October, an email was sent out by the Corroboration and Review Committee and the Election Commission notifying the General Body of flagrant violations of the Procedure Manual and the Students’ Union Constitution by the President and the General Secretary of the Students’ Union. The email was issued as a formal warning to the President, Bharatharatna Puli, and the General Secretary, Shivam Jindal and mentioned three instances of them bypassing the CRC to process payments. ‘Although these violations imply no financial wrongdoing on the behalf of the office bearers, it is the first time elected representatives have flagrantly violated the Procedure Manual’, said a member of the Election Commission.

On the three occasions mentioned in the email, the office bearers approached the Dean, SWD directly and took the signed letter to the Accounts division, effectively bypassing the CRC. ‘No action has been taken against Puli and Jindal apart from the warning mail due to the fact that Oasis was drawing near and we could not afford to take risks’, said the CRC. The Dean, SWD, has been asked to sign only on payment requests submitted by the CRC to prevent such occurrences in the future. The CRC also suspected something was amiss after it was reported that Jindal had samples of apparel in his possession prior to the email inviting quotes was sent out to vendors, but EC claimed to have no knowledge of this. However, Jindal had contacted multiple vendors early on in the semester in a bid to get inventory delivered before the fest. ‘This was the first time the Oasis apparel was brought in and distributed before Oasis began’, said the General Secretary.

‘These payments were ones that had to be made. They weren’t payments that the StuCCA, SU or the CRC were unaware of. If a payment happens without the knowledge of the CRC and there is no context to the payment, only then can we accuse the dealings of being shady. However, violating the Constitution is a very serious offence and further violations could lead to termination of office’, said a member of the Election Commission. The Election Commission added that members of the StuCCA complained of the CRC being complacent in attending meets and getting work done. ’The CRC representative was accused of having left midway through the StuCCA meet in order to prepare for mid-semester examinations while the apparel tender was being finalised’, the EC spokesperson said.

The President and General Secretary claimed that “a lack of time and slack from the authorities” forced them to take matters into their own hands to get payments processed without the CRC involved. ‘The DVM reimbursement issue happened just before midsems when CRC was “unavailable”. There was nobody to sign on the documents. The bills that we have submitted are proper IGST bills and all finances have been accounted for’, said Puli. CRC stated that they were unaware of the reimbursements being made in the middle of the semester.

‘I think it’s the responsibility of each body mentioned in the charter to attend relevant meets. If you have made a commitment, you have to see it through, even if it means compromising on academics now and then’, said Jindal, talking about CRC’s absence during the apparel meet. ‘The meet was about the apparel being brought on time and the payments. The CRC knew about it – they drafted the MOU. I needed to get the payment done quickly and I managed to get it done by the 16th of October by bypassing the CRC. If I hadn’t done it by then, the apparel would not have reached campus before Oasis started’, he said.

Karunesh Talwar’s payment was such a matter of urgency as well. ‘We were supposed to get another artist to perform for N2O. However, his payment was not processed for a long time. The artist then cancelled the show just twenty days before the fest. Because of this, we had to get a different artist on board in a very short period of time. Therefore, Karunesh Talwar’s payment had to be processed quickly’, Puli said. The representatives were quick to add that after these incidents, the CRC worked very efficiently during Oasis to get work done on time.

‘We accept that we did not follow the procedure as laid down in the Procedure Manual. However, whatever we did was only for practical reasons and there was no financial wrongdoing on our part’, said the office bearers.

A member of the StuCCA called the episode a “huge overreaction to a minor incident”. ‘CRC wasn’t present in the meeting and the President and General Secretary had to go through with the payment because it was urgent. We lost a good artist because payments were not done on time and Karunesh Talwar’s payments had to be processed in the last moment’, the StuCCAn said. ‘The apparel  payment was discussed during the meet and the StuCCA was aware of what happened. However, the CRC was not present for the meet’, he added. ‘I can’t say that the CRC was wrong in sending the warning mail. The GBM needed to be intimated’, he concluded.

The CRC, however, cited prior commitments by the other artist as the reason for the cancellation, quoting an email from the artist’s representative dated 28th of September that stated that the artist ‘won’t be able to perform for BITS on 4th of November due to the travel time it’ll consume to reach and get back, since we have commitments on 3rd and 5th November.’

The standard procedure for processing payments is drawn out by the CRC. ‘An invoice is generated in the name of the Student’s Union and is mailed to the CRC. The CRC then writes a letter to the Dean, SWD, giving details of the account and amount to be paid and the President or General Secretary signs on it. The letter is then submitted to the SWD. It is signed by the Dean and is forwarded to the Accounts division’, said a member of the CRC. The procedure is time consuming as it has to pass through multiple Institutional channels, which cannot be rushed by the CRC. ‘The CRC was not informed by the President or the General Secretary about the payments that were made bypassing us. The SWD employees suspected financial wrongdoing, and brought the matter to our attention. This is not a trivial issue,’ the CRC member added. ‘The CRC exists to ensure that unchecked transactions do not occur, and this incident superseded all the checks and balances.’