Abdalians Alumni Home

Wednesday, 20 April 2011 00:25

After the usual ceremonies of dua at the Shuhahda Monument and the wreath laying at Mr. Catchpol's grave, the old boys assembled in the Naeem Hall for the AGM. They welcomed the old teachers, who had come to attend this function as well, which included Mr. Jafri and Khateeb (Zahoor) Sahib, Mr. Khalid Amin, Mr Qadeer, Mr. Bukhari, Mr. Hasnain, Mr. Iftikhar, Mr. Misbah, Mr. Mahfooz ur Rahman and Syed Dilshad Hussain. The AGM started with the recitation of the Holy Quran, after which the Principal, Mr. Asif Malik delivered his opening speech and briefed the gathering on the work done in CCH during the year. This was followed by a speech by Mr. Khalid Amin, who taught as Cadet College Hasanabdal for about eight years and left it in 1965 to join the civil service. Prof. Dilshad Hussain also spoke at length about his life and experience at Cadet College. Although, the AGM has to be presided by the Principal, being HOBA's patron-in-chief, Mr. Malik requested Prof. Dilshad Hussain to do the honours and preside the meeting. Prof. Dilshad, then distributed the souveniers to the old teachers. Mr. Asif Malik, then appointed Mr. Mahfooz and Mr. Misbah to oversee the election process and handed over the floor to them. By this time, it was getting quite late and the ladies and children who had accompanied the old boys were waiting for lunch to be served. The HOBA administration therefore decided that the election process should be held after lunch.

The lunch was served in the lawns between the education block and the staff room, rather than the Oval. The arena was very crowded and the regular fruit stall was no where to be seen. At around 3:15pm, an announcement was made by the office bearers, requesting the old boys to come back into Naeem Hall, so that the election process could be proceeded with. As soon as Mr. Mahfooz ur Rahman had announced the procedure and invited the candidates to come and introduce themselves, Syed Aqil Shah proposed to the house that the incumbent President should continue in office for another year. This created a rumpus in the house, and a large majority insisted that the election s process should continue.

Syed Aqil Shah, a one time HOBA President himself, in a very calm manner, told the house that a precedent already existed where despite the announcement of the elections schedule, the house voted for him to continue for one extra year. He further said that if Syed Ashfaq Hussain had performed so well, and as mentioned in the speech of the Secretary General, performed beyond peoples imagination, there was no reason that he should not continue for one more year. The Secretary Finance, Capt (R) Nayyar Islam, rejected the proposal on the grounds that the Memorandum & Articles of Association did not allow this and as a result the elections process will continue. On hearing this, Syed Aqil Shah and a lot of other Abdalians walked out from and hall giving the floor to Mr. Mahfooz who then invited the candidates to come and introduce themselves.

Dr. Afaq Hussain, was the first to come to the rostrum and announced that he was withdrawing his name as a candidate. Engr. Jameel Malik said that the elections process should continue and no extension can be granted. Prof. Shoaib Shafi, when asked to come and speak, expressed similar views, whereafter, the process of issuing ballot papers to the voters started. The Finance Secretary would call out the name of the "eligible" voter, who would then receive a ballot paper signed by the Secretary General and counter-signed by Mr. Mahfooz.

While the voting was talking place, a serious discrepancy was brought to the notice of one of the contesting candidate, Engr. Jameel Malik, who then went to the stage to confirm whether the discrepancy really existed. He then found out that although, the HOBA administration had declared this to be a secret ballot, in reality the ballot paper was serially numbered and the counterfoil which contained the voters name, kit number and CNIC also had the same number. He protested that in essence, this was not a secret ballot as the administration could know which person voted for which candidate. He then submitted a written complaint to the elections overseers and walked out of the hall, announcing that he would not accept the results of the elections irrespective of which candidate wins, as the fundamentals of the secret ballot had been violated.

Mr. Mahfooz ur Rahman announced that in order to address Engr. Jameel's complaint, the overseers shall deface the number on the ballot paper. Brig. Noor, an ex-Secretary General suggested that the corner containing the number should be ripped off. But at the end of the day, it was decided that defacing the number would be the best way to go. This resulted in a massive win for Prof. Shoaib Shafi who obtained 73 votes out of the 85 polled, whereas Engr. Jameel managed to secure 11 votes. Mr. Mahfooz ur Rahman, after the final count, declared Prof. Shoaib Shafi as the new president of Abdalians Association at around 5 pm in the presence of only a handful of Abdalians, as the rest had all left the College by then. Mr. Saleem Akram from the 14th Entry, even warned the administration to beware of a writ petition against the elections, coming their way.

The Accounts for the year ended 30-Jun-2010 presented by the Secretary Finance, Capt (R) Nayyar Islam, also did not give a very comforting picture. A surplus of Rs. 95,995 was reported as against Rs. 389,379 in the previous period, showing a decrease of 75%. Receipts towards scholarships were down 46%, actually showing a negative balance of Rs. 96,000 in the Scholarship Fund. Similarly, the Rehabilitation Fund showed a decrease of 132% and posted a negative balance of Rs. 33,000 in the Rehabilitation Fund. Rs. 9,000 were spent towards web hosting charges for the official web site, which contains very little content and appears to be novice work. Had it not been for a Rs. 500,000 contribution by Petarians Association, the year would have ended in a deficit of Rs.404,005.

The much announced cricket match, which was part of the programme was only attended by six young Abdalians, who played againt the College Team. The victory by the Old Boys, brought the days programme to an end.