Kochi: The district registrar has proposed that the financial transactions within the Kerala Film Distributors Association should be investigated by an external auditor and submitted a report in this regard. The registrar also recommended dissolving the present administrative committee, which has been found to have committed serious violations of the law. 

As per the report, the administrative committee was constituted after convening a general meeting while the registrar’s probe was underway. The committee comprises ineligible former members and those who committed grave law violations. Hence, the state government can submit a request before the district court seeking to dissolve the present committee and appoint a new one, the report said. 

It is learnt that the administrative committee stated that it had incurred an expense of Rs 60 lakh for the case involving the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over various categories, but failed to submit documents in this regard. Though they stated that the advocate’s fee was transferred via account, no documents were produced to substantiate the same. 

Furthermore, there is a mismatch between the amount mentioned in the committee’s report and that given to the probe team. 

It may be noted that poster sealing charges were scrapped after GST came into effect in 2017. However, the probe found that the association kept it a secret and continued to levy the charge from the members.

The office bearers of the committee also claimed that significant documents such as vouchers and receipts related to income and expenditure figures, which were not approved by the general meeting, were destroyed in termite attacks. However, they were unable to produce the remnants of the documents too.