Due to court case by Trustee board
against EC & Employees, plus dictatorship of trustee board and some
controversial/illegal decisions by them "Academy of Fine Arts" is in
a verge of closing.
An Apolitical Candle March Protest
Rally by all artists, actors/actresses & Academy lovers held on 28Dec17 to
save Kolkata's pride "Academy Of Fine Arts" was organized by Save Academy
Of Fine Arts (Academy Of Fine Arts Bnachao).
Around 500 artists, painter, actors’
actresses, theater personals & art/theater lovers participated in this
protest rally, Mrs. Shyama Das. Mr. Saroop Chattopadhyay, Mr. Prasun Bhowmick
& Prof Nabakishore Chandra, Tuli Guha, Malay Das, tapan pathak, Biplab Dolui, Bishwatosh Da
addressed the rally & led the rally with active support of Mr. Santosh Das,
Mr. Sudip Banerjee, Mr. Kamal Banerjee, Bijoyda, Prafullada, Chandan Sengupta, Asis
Samanta, Sridhar Mal, Badalda, Prasenjit Chakraborty, Jhantuda, Gautamda, Mange etc plus hundreds of
artists, painters, actors actresses, theatre
& art lovers.
Several theatre groups
including Bahurupi, Shudrak, Drishyapat, 21 Shatak, Charkak, Rongobyango Awaditiya,
etc also taken part in this protest rally.
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/WGZfLURr1a4
We “Save Academy of Fine Arts”
don't want to close Academy for even a single day.
Our demands are:
1) Clarity in Academy's function. Gallery & auditorium allocation shouldn't
be done without proper application and permission from inside of Academy.
2) To protect Academy's assets including museum.
Museum is closed since last
10 years, some section has already doubted that few valuable paintings, sculpture
& assets by/of Rabindranath Tagor, Abanindranant, Jamini Roy, Nandalal
Bose, & Lady Ranu Mukherjee etc are either lost or destroyed so we demand
an independent enquiry.
3) Academy should be run from Academy only &
not from any trustee/joint secretary's house, who don't visit Academy month
after month.
4) Immediate payment of
salaries of three employees which was stopped by Trustees since long.
5) We're requesting State
Government & our Hon CM, please acquire Academy to protect it from further
damage & to save misuse of funds & assets.
No AGM was held since over
three years so by society act now Trustee Board & EC are illegal.
Therefore Government can acquire
academy immediately.
6) Immediate removal of Mr. Kallol Bose
who haven’t been in Academy since over 11 months. Recently he is trying to run Academy from
outside by online. Surprisingly inside Academy there is no internet connection
at present & the website they have created is not an official Academy’s
website.
7) Present Chairman of trustee
board is Mr. Prasun Mukherjee, Ex-CP, during then CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s
era.
Nowadays he is not at all
cooperating with staffs, Executive Committee etc for smooth running of Academy,
instead he is supporting Mr. Kallol Bose only who is full of allegation.
8) 81st Annual Exhibitions
prize money etc are still due.
9) Unnecessary expense by filing &
fighting legal cases against staffs and executive committee with Academy's fund
should be stopped.
10) The trustees are not authorized
to tender any financial expenses as per their wish, in spite of this they have
incurred expenses electrical goods costing to Rs. 16 lakhs for Exhibition
Gallery from Philips India in Feb 2015.
11) Mr. Kallol Bose Joint
Sec arranged “Art & Heritage Foundation” with all Exhibition Galleries for
organising CIMA Award Show for 4o days (24th Jan to 04 March 2017) for non
commercial rates incurring loss of Rs.15lacs.
12) The Board of Trustees
headed by Sri Prasun Mukherjee being aided by Sri Kallol Bose Jt Sec of
Executive Committee favors a section of the employees owing allegiance to CITTU
& BJP as a result exploiting the other section of INTTUC. Moreover the
services of two trainees & 2 contract labors were regularized on 18thJune 2016
& salaries revised only to boost the moral of those unions & demoralizing
the INTTUC members.
Few More important facts:
To keep the accounts in the hands of the
Trustees, they compelled the Executive Committee to appoint an Accounts Officer
in May 2015 from their known sources. Surprisingly, the existing accountant was
illegally show caused by Trustee along with Jt Secy Mr. Kallol Bose and
subsequently suspended in Feb 2016. A domestic enquiry was also conducted. But,
he was not proved guilty. However, the Trustees and the Joint Secretary denied
the fact and still deprived him of his salary.
A resolution was taken in a
Executive Committee meeting dated 09th Dec 2016 through valid quorum of 6
members headed by other Joint Secretary, Sri Sudip Banerjee, and accordingly,
the service of Mr. Subhasish Ghosh, Administrative Officer was regularised who
joined the Academy on 01st Oct 2012 for a probation period of 1 year and whose
confirmation of service was pending since 01st Oct 2013; illegitimate
suspension order on Mr. Gautam Sinha, Accountant was withdrawn and Sri Mange
Balmiki was appointed as Trainee, Security Guard. The Board of Trustees denied
the resolution of quorum and still not released their actual salaries.
The Jt. Secretary Sri Sudip Banerjee
informed to the office of Joint Labour Commissioner about the resolutions
pertaining to employees on 14th Dec 16. The INTTUC union also approached to the
office of Joint Labor Commissioner. But unfortunately, their grievances remain
unresolved in JLC office because to avoid an order from the office of JLC in favor
of the employees, the Board of Trustees filed a Title Suit NO. 621 OF 2017 on
02nd June 2017 against the aforesaid three employees and four members of EC who
formed the quorum before the Learned City Civil Court at Calcutta.
It was plead to Honorable court for an
injunction restraining those three employees and four members of quorum from
use of Academy premises. The Trustees meet the legal expenses from the corpus
of Academy. But, the victim employees
are paying from their pocket to defend the case in court which aggravates their
misery further.
WE ALL BELIVE THAT ONLY OUR HON. DIDI WHO IS AN ARTIST &
ART-LOVER HERSELF, CAN REMOVE THE DARKNESS FROM ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS THE DREAM
OF LADY RANU MUKHERJEE & THE MAIN THEATRE+ART HUB IN EASTERN INDIA SINCE
1933.
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Thanks & Vande Mataram!! Saroop Chattopadhyay.
