AITA Trust and Anil Khanna back in focus ahead of EGM

Ahead of Sunday’s Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the All India Tennis Association (AITA), focus is back on the AITA Trust.

The Trust was established in September 2000 by the AITA for the “promotion and development of tennis throughout the country”, and was also handed exclusive property rights with respect to the R.K. Khanna Tennis Stadium in Delhi.

Prima facie, this is a duplication of the AITA’s role and a shifting of responsibilities from an elected, not-for-profit body to a parallel power-centre.

Recently, the Trust was also seen as unaccountable when Justice (retd.) Gita Mittal, the Delhi High Court-appointed administrator of AITA, asked for financial records only to be told that the Trust was autonomous and private.

This exchange came on the back of serious allegations of Trust funds being transferred to individuals’ accounts and being used for expensive land deals. As of March 31, 2021, the Trust had an income worth ₹3.57 crore.

But in a scenario where the AITA president, secretary and treasurer automatically assume equivalent roles in the Trust, is it really independent?

Documents show how this conflict played out last year when the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association (DLTA) accused the Trust of “appropriating rentals over various portions of the [R.K. Khanna] Stadium since 2006”.

The Stadium complex houses nearly a dozen private establishments, and papers show that they generate rents worth tens of lakhs every month.

It was alleged that AITA and the erstwhile DLTA had entered into agreements in 2014 and 2017 to transfer these rentals to the Trust, and “such a fraud could be played as Mr. Anil Khanna was the chairman of AITA Trust, president of DLTA and president of AITA at that time”.

DLTA claimed that these agreements were terminated in January 2023 and the Trust had agreed to return close to ₹40 crore.

But Anil Jain, the Trust’s chairman and also the then president of AITA, refuted all charges and sought to establish the Trust’s ownership to parts of the Stadium. But the conflict of interest was left unaddressed.

Another conflict

In fact, that back-and-forth pointed to another conflict. Rohit Rajpal, who was one of the signatories to the letter in his capacity as DLTA president, was also the treasurer of the Trust, with his name prominently mentioned in Jain’s reply.

Records also show that Rajpal, currently an AITA vice-president and Davis Cup captain, is part director at an unlisted private company named All India Tennis Association (registered office at the R.K. Khanna Stadium) that has Jain and Aditya Khanna — son of Anil Khanna — as other directors.

The developments around the Trust also gain significance now because veteran administrator Anil Khanna, who is set to attend Sunday’s EGM as a representative from Bihar, is understood to still be a permanent trustee despite holding no office in the AITA.

This has been possible because the Trust has 21 permanent trustees out of 30, and they can hold office until they “die or voluntarily resign or are declared of unsound mind or are convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude”.

Anil Khanna was part of the first list of trustees in 2000, and has been omnipresent since then, even signing the profit-and-loss statement in the capacity of chairman in November 2021.