Theos-Talk Archives (April 1998 Message tt00514)

Hello: I have just sent the following msg to Wheaton by Fax and E-mail.
Please note that I am copying it to the International President due to the
importance of the issue.

mkr


Phone & FAX: (210) 615-7373
April 24, 1998
 By Fax, E-mail, and USPS

National President and Elected Members of Board of Directors
Theosophical Society in America
PO Box 270
Wheaton IL 60189-0270

Dear Brothers:

The terms governing the Theosophical Investment Trust has been of concern
to me since the time the Bylaws of TSA were revised couple of years ago. It
may recalled that I corresponded with John Algeo on this subject couple of
years ago. At that time I had requested him to send me a copy of the Trust
document and the Bylaws, which he is yet to respond.

This morning, I happened to read the President's Diary written by John
Algeo in the Quest/AT of January 1998. On page 19, he had stated that the
Theosophical Investment Trust which oversees investment of the funds of TSA
has seven Trustees. Of the seven, three are ex-offico - (1) National
President of TSA, (2) one of the National Vice Presidents of TSA and (3)
the National Treasurer. The four others are "self-perpetuating" but may not
be officers of the Society. Current bylaws provide for the transfer of all
the assets of TSA to the TIT in the event of TSA being dissolved for
whatever reason. He precisely explained the status of the four non
ex-officio Trustees. This "self-perpetuating'" feature can be deadly at a
future date.

Many of you may perhaps know, the Krishnamurti Trusts set up to help
Krishnaji travel and teach and lecture ended up having this
"self-perpetuating" feature. When Krishnaji was alive and wanted to find
out what was going on in the management of the Trust funds and assets, this
"self-perpetuating" feature prevented him access to the information as well
as he himself could not get on as a Trustee of the Trusts. Consequently,
the new KFA Foundation was setup (which has specific "anti
self-perpetuation feature") and it and the Attorney General of California
had to sue the Krishnamurti Trusts and Trustees to recover the assets which
were donated for the benefit of Krishnaji. The litigation went on for 18
years wasting huge sums of money on lawyers and causing a lot of trouble
and inconvenience to Krishnaji and others. TSA and every charitable or
religious organization can learn a valuable good lesson from what went on
with the Krishnamurti Trusts. I strongly urge you and other members of the
Board of Directors to study the documented details of Krishnamurti Trusts
litigation to familiarize how this "self-perpetuation" feature was one of
the fundamental causes which prolonged the litigation. No one need to take
my word. Nor should any of you blindly take any statement made by one of
the current officers of TSA who was one of the Krishnamurti Trust Trustees
and was a defendant. Nor should the focus be the final settlement document
which ended the litigation after Krishnaji's death. Instead I urge you all
to study the details of the litigation with an open mind to fully
understand the impact of what I am trying to say.

As the cancellation of the charter has taken place in other countries for
various reasons, no one should rule out such a thing happening in the USA.
Also with a change in the composition of the membership and the elected
National Board members, the current bylaws can be easily changed, thus
removing all the protective clauses in the TSA Bylaws. So now is the time
to look into this issue and make sure that it is fixed and fixed right
before it is too late. Hence I request this issue be included in the next
meeting of the Board of Directors of TSA and discussed and quick action taken.

With regards,

 Fraternally Yours,

 M K Ramadoss