In July 2024, a district court in Jammu handed two retired judges a clear job: get the Jammu Press Club to hold its overdue election, “by all means”, by September 30.

It’s been over two years since, and the elections are nowhere in sight. The two former judges are still in place. And the club is still paying them Rs 1 lakh each a month to oversee its accounts: signing off on 49 member staff salaries, bar bills and daily supplies, either from the committee room, or the accounts office, or from their own homes when a club employee is sent over with paperwork.

This seems to be a strange arrangement for a body of nearly 870 journalists: an institution whose members spend their working lives asking public offices why their processes have stalled, unable to run a ballot of its own for two years. The former judges refused to clearly specify the amount they have received so far, but by Newslaundry’s estimates, the club has committed close to Rs 48 lakh to the two men since July 2024. This amount, some members say, could have gone towards repairs the building has not seen since years. 

Apart from the district court, the matter has also reached the high court. And at the centre of the dispute are two names known to every reporter in Jammu. 

Sanjeev Pargal, the club president and bureau chief of the Daily Excelsior, the city’s largest newspaper, wants more than 200 “doubtful voters” struck off the rolls before anyone votes. He also wants the general secretary, Dinesh Manhotra, struck off the membership altogether, claiming he is a government employee, and therefore ineligible in the journalist category. Manhotra, on his part, claims the screening of voters is a device to keep Pargal in the president’s chair. He alleges the screening process is aimed merely at harassment.

Reached for comment, the two men blunt their aggressive courtroom positions. 

Pargal told us the points in contest were sub-judice and refused to discuss any of them. Manhotra said the club was a “family” and “this is a family matter”. Neither has responded to our written questionnaire.

Newslaundry studied district and high court case orders and spoke to the club’s president, general secretary and apex committee to understand the sequence of events that transpired at the club over the last two years. Several members of the club spoke to us on condition of anonymity to express frustration over the internal strife.

How it all began 

This story begins on March 26, 2024, at the end of Pargal’s two-year term as president, when Manhotra called a meeting of the management committee to conduct fresh elections.

This committee, with four elected members and seven executive members, all of them journalist or lifetime members, runs the club’s affairs, and each member votes for president, vice-president, general secretary and treasurer. 

Manhotra and the treasurer issued the election notification. Pargal went to court to have it quashed, arguing that the general secretary could not call elections without the president and vice-president’s go-ahead. He had also removed Manhotra from the club’s membership, alleging he had indulged in various malpractices, causing monetary loss to the club. Manhotra’s position was that Pargal simply did not want elections.

On April 4, 2024, the district judge directed Pargal to convene the management committee and start the election process before his term ended on April 15. On the allegations against Manhotra, the court said it was a “matter of trial”. It barred any expenditure without its approval until a new body was elected.

Two extensions, and a screening committee

A month later, Pargal told the court the election process had started. A screening committee had been formed to verify voters, with Pargal himself at his head, along with three other members. 

But journalist members were busy with Lok Sabha elections, held between April 19 and June 1, 2024, and Pargal asked for six months.

Manhotra objected, calling Pargal’s request an “utter disregard of this court direction of holding elections immediately after the expiry of the term”.

The court partially approved Pargal’s request. It gave the club until June 30, noting he intended to hold “fair and transparent” elections and that the general election would be over by early June. It also relaxed its spending freeze so that the club could pay salaries, government dues and bar expenses without returning to court each time.

June 30 passed with no election. In late July, the screening committee reported that it had checked the eligibility of nearly 870 voters and found 116 to be doubtful. Many of them, it said, had incorrect addresses and contact numbers on record. It requested two more months to complete the “comprehensive” task of screening voters.

Pargal asked for six more months. 

One of the doubtful members was Manhotra himself. Pargal told the court he was a government employee and “not eligible” to become a member in the “journalist category”. He also claimed Manhotra had a complaint against him in the Crime Branch, and that he had approached the Central Administrative Tribunal in Jammu seeking withdrawal of his resignation, in which he had allegedly admitted being a government employee. Pargal also claimed Manhotra had in “violation” of court direction deposited club money in fixed deposit receipts “without the consent” of the president and the management committee.

But Manhotra told the court that Pargal’s screening committee was harassing members, himself included. He said that several members had “questioned the integrity of the members of the screening committee” that appeared to be working in cahoots with the president to stall elections. He said there was a deadlock that was holding up club operations, including the renewal of the club’s lease from the J&K government.

This time, the court decided the two sides needed a referee.

Enter the overseers

The court appointed two former district and sessions judges, Suresh Sharma and Vijay Singh Manhas, to oversee the election process, and because the general secretary who handled the club’s finances was himself facing allegations, to manage the club’s finances. This oversight committee, officially called the apex committee, was to ensure that elections were held by September 30, 2024. Their honorarium, fixed by the court and paid by the club, was Rs 50,000 per month each.

Nine days before that deadline, Pargal sought another extension, citing the assembly elections in the union territory. The former judges made the same request, and separately asked the court to spell out what their role in the elections was. 

With both sides agreeing that the assembly elections were an impediment, the court extended the deadline to November 30 and clarified that the ex-judges would “oversee and monitor the entire election process”. It reasoned that with polling ending on October 8, two months were enough.

Both parties agreed that the honorarium for the judges was too low and should be increased. The court doubled it, to Rs 1 lakh each per month.

The elections still did not happen.

On October 24, 2024, the former judges wrote to Pargal directing him to call a meeting of the management committee within five days to initiate the election process, Suresh Sharma of the apex committee informed Newslaundry in response to our written queries.

The president, “instead of complying with the said communication” went to the principal district judge in Jammu seeking a stay on it. On November 13, the court dismissed Pargal’s application and asked him to hold elections within 15 days, as per the previous deadline of November 30.

Three days later, the management committee was convened, without the president and vice-president, Sharma said. It fixed the election for November 30, and rejected the screening committee’s report. 

Pargal then took the matter to the High Court of J&K and Ladakh. On November 19, 2024, the high court stayed the election process and ordered status quo.

That is where it has stayed since

Since November 2024, the battle has dragged on in the high court.

By then, the screening committee had moved 248 “doubtful” members from the “journalist category” to the “associate category” that does not hold the right to vote. Manhotra was among them.

The committee’s own composition has been contested from early on: In May 2024, five members of the managing committee wrote a letter asking why they had not been consulted on its formation, and what criteria were used to nominate members to it.

In February 2025, Pargal’s side insisted in court that the management committee did not have the power to annul the screening committee’s decision. That the purpose of the screening committee was to verify voters, that this purpose stood defeated and that all the extensions to complete this task had gone to waste. The court asked Manhotra to respond to the arguments against his membership, and satisfy the court that the management committee could annul the screening committee’s decision. 

The next hearing was supposed to be held in March 2025, but was adjourned due to lack of time. Since then, there has not been any progress in the case. 

In the meantime, the club stands in disarray. 

“The regular affairs are going on, but renovation is not happening,” said Anil Langeh, the club manager, adding that he did not have any more information regarding the management committee’s affairs.

Sharma, the only senior representative to answer Newslaundry’s questions in detail, said management committee meetings were not being held, and the final call lay with that committee since the screening committee could only recommend. “The president wants the people to be delisted before voting happens, but the management committee is not on the same page,” he said.

On the club’s finances, he said, “When any financial matter comes up, we ask all the office bearers to approve it and then we finally approve it. The arrangement is there. Recently no proposal has come for renovations.”

He said the overseers had pushed the other way. “Rather we asked them (to fast-track work). They were giving proposals for small works, but I said whatever is required now, let’s have it done because we don’t know how long the elections would be delayed. We can’t wait another five or six months.”

On the delay itself, he said, “Courts, you know, have a long list of cases. Sometimes they also don’t want to get involved.”

Asked how much they had been paid, Sharma, on behalf of the two former judges, said only that they continue to manage and conduct the financial affairs of the club as per court orders. They did not answer questions on renovation expenses and management committee meetings.

We reached out to both Pargal and Manhotra on the phone. 

Pargal said all the points of the contest were sub-judice and refused to divulge anything. When asked about the issue of doubtful voters, he stressed that they were voters “he felt were doubtful”.

Manhotra said the club was a family and this was a “family-matter”. “There is no question of taking this to the media.” 

They are yet to respond to our written queries.

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