The English Press Club spoke to Ritien Mohan, Vibhav Agarwal, and Arun Kumar from the Corroboration and Review Committee (CRC) to gain a comprehensive overview of the allegations of financial mismanagement against the SU. The following article contains excerpts from the statement released by the Students’ Union (SU) in response to the video containing evidence of Ashirwad Karande, the President of the SU, allegedly acknowledging the bribes that the office bearers took over the course of Oasis 2022 being circulated across social media.

“A video came to our notice featuring a conversation between members of the Students’ Union. To set the context correct, it is apparent from the voice in the video that the President is having a conversation with terminated Ex-General Secretary Mr. Harsh Lamba. It is obvious that the said video has been doctored with nefarious intent. It is appalling that respectable former members of the Union like Mr. Lamba and his acolytes have acted in such treachery…”

CRC started off by stating that the video in question featured sensitive content which was never meant to be leaked to the public. They unequivocally denied any involvement with the leaking of the video and strongly condemned the act, as it was a grave violation of the privacy and trust of the individual in question. CRC added that the leaking of these videos enabled the spread of misinformation among the GBM, which is why they wished to give a statement explaining the same.

“…..Various Union members have always tried to work cordially with each other despite setbacks and electoral failures. We do not believe in carrying out public attacks to castigate fellow students as a way of hiding incompetent functioning. The President in the circulated video is seen explaining the registration fee. Obfuscating the context presents a narrative that a bribe of sorts is being extracted…..”

Ritien explained that the issue started with irregularities in the procedure of bringing in a vendor for food stalls. He explained that bringing in food stalls is usually the responsibility of the Department of Sponsorship and Marketing (Sponz). They bring in multiple vendors, whose quotations are compared and negotiated with, in order to arrive at the maximum percentage of profit. This is supposed to be followed by a “written quotation”, which would then be signed by CRC and the President. This time, CRC explained that there was only one vendor, who was brought in at a juncture when there was an insufficient time gap to conduct vendor negotiations. Ritien explained that it felt “rigged” that only one vendor was brought in at that juncture, with all other vendors being rejected for certain reasons. While Vibhav acknowledged that they were not aware of the reasons behind Sponz not being involved with the acquisition of vendors, he did agree that CRC was made aware of this vendor at a much later stage. Given the absence of formal documentation and the urgency with which the vendor was brought to their notice, CRC started suspecting that there was some degree of financial mismanagement involved. 

“…..In the second video, Mr. Lamba is clearly trying to convince the president to use the SU App over the Oasis App, which uses a coupon system that is prone to tampering and forging. He was discouraging the use of the OASIS app due to a purely personal enmity with DVM…..”

According to Arun, Ashirwad asserted that the vendor being brought in also worked for Oasis 2015 and 2016. On further investigation, it was found that the vendor only worked as a relatively small part of a larger vendor organisation, and was not the primary stall vendor for the fests as claimed by Ashirwad. CRC wanted to highlight that the process of bringing in the vendor lacked transparency from the side of the SU. Reasons like poor service were given by the SU to justify a new vendor for the fest, but Arun mentioned that this was not a reason to not ask vendors for their quotations. CRC justified signing the MoU by saying that it was too late for them to refuse to sign the MoU and that they had no reason to refuse to do so either. However, they mentioned that they put forth the option of seeking new quotations from all vendors in contention, but the SU refused to do so, citing the lack of time. 

“…..Regarding the claim of 2.5%, we will soon send an email with all the necessary proofs. Ad hominem would be unnecessary for us to defend our fairly strong case but it is distastefully droll that we are being accused of malpractices by certain people who were deposed for misleading the GBM. It would be comically naive to assign any credibility to charges from such a source…”

Ritien stated that in addition to the percentage of revenue from the food stalls which was to be given to the institute, Ashirwad and Naman asked for a cut of 5%, amounting to 2.5% each, from the existing revenue. This implied that for every INR 100 of food stall revenue, Ashirwad and Naman were getting INR 2.50 each. Ritien explained that given the revenue from the food stalls amounted to INR 48 to 50 lakh, implying that Ashirwad and Naman could have taken INR 1.2 to 1.25 lakh each for themselves. CRC explained that they spoke to various stakeholders, including Sponz, the different vendors, and the institute to gather further information regarding the possible financial mismanagement. The information obtained from all the sources corroborated the allegations against the SU. Arun explained that an MoU normally requires the signatures of CRC and the President of the SU, but Ashirwad also collected the signatures of some other StuCCAns. CRC claimed that Ashirwad did so in order to avoid the backlash for the stalls falling singularly onto him. 

CRC concluded by saying that they have communicated the findings of their investigation to the Election Commission and the institute and have decided to “raise a flagrant violation” against Ashirwad and Naman. This decision has been sent to the institute administration for review . If approved, the office-bearers cease to hold their office and instead have three days to regain the confidence of the GBM in the form of a signed memorandum. They explained that, given the sensitive nature of the issue, they were unsure as to when this would be enacted.