Eleven CINTAA members resign, alleging misuse of power by top office-bearers.
Members accuse leadership of bypassing consultation and constitutional governance norms.
CINTAA denies dissolution, disputes claim that resignation threshold has been met.
CINTAA (Cine and TV Artistes Association) is facing an internal dispute after 11 members of its Executive Committee resigned with immediate effect, alleging that President Poonam Dhillon and Senior Vice-President Padmini Kolhapure misused their positions. General Secretary and actor Upasana Singh confirmed the resignations to ANI, while CINTAA’s legal representative has disputed claims that the committee has been dissolved.
Eight of the 11 resigning members were elected to the Executive Committee. They include Hemant Pandey, Mukesh Rishi, Sahila Chadha, Hetal Parmar, Puneet Issar, Vindu Dara Singh, Vikas Verma and Deepak Parashar. The members also submitted complaints outlining their reasons for stepping do
CINTAA members raise governance concerns
In their joint resignation letter, the members alleged that collective decision-making and constitutional procedures were not being followed. They claimed that several decisions had become concentrated around Poonam Dhillon and Padmini Kolhapure.
The allegations included Dhillon issuing communications to government officials through her personal email account and communicating with industry organisations through CINTAA’s official email without Executive Committee approval. The members also alleged that Dhillon represented CINTAA before government, quasi-judicial and industry bodies without informing the committee.
Questions were also raised over lawyers allegedly engaged privately by Dhillon and Kolhapure and introduced as CINTAA’s lawyers without Executive Committee sanction.
Singh said the resignations were linked to alleged misuse of authority. “Out of our 11 members, eight elected members have resigned and submitted their resignations to me. They have also submitted their complaints, stating that Padmini Kolhapure and Poonam Dhillon are misusing their positions,” she said.
CINTAA disputes claims of dissolution
Singh also alleged that show-cause notices were issued arbitrarily, members’ roles were changed without sufficient consultation and membership cards were cancelled without prior warning. She questioned the use of personal email accounts for official communication, saying, “When a mail has to be sent to any organisation, we cannot send it through our personal mail ID if we want to send it officially.”
CINTAA’s lawyer Suvigya Vidyarthi rejected the claim that the Executive Committee had been dissolved. “The version which has been circulating that the EC of CINTAA is dissolved is totally wrong, misconceived and lacks any judicial sanctity,” he said.
Vidyarthi said the Constitution requires more than 50% of elected members to resign for dissolution and claimed replacements had already been inducted based on election vote counts. Singh maintained that the Constitution allows dissolution when half or more members resign and said the members want the Registrar to oversee fresh elections.
