Court No. - 40
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL No. - 1090 of 2018 Appellant :- C/M J.S. Hindu Inter College And 6 Others Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 6 Others Counsel for Appellant :- Prabhakar Awasthi Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J. Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.
Heard Sri Prabhakar Awasthi, learned counsel for the appellants and Sri J.H. Khan, learned counsel for the respondents.
This controversy relates to the election of J.S. Hindu Inter College, Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. The matter travelled up to the Supreme Court and on 2nd February, 2016, Supreme Court passed the following orders:-
"1. Leave granted.
2. The issue raised in these appeals pertains to election to the Managing Committee of J. S. Hindu Inter College, Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. Now that the disputed term has already expired, it is not necessary for us to go into the facts.
3. The learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that despite the expiry of the term, no fresh elections have been held so far.
4. The learned counsel for the State has submitted that it is the Director of Education who has to oversee the election.
5. In case no elections have been held to the Managing Committee, we direct, in the peculiar background of these cases, the Director of Education, Government of U.P. to personally oversee the elections to the Managing Committee of J. S. Hindu Inter College, Amroha, U.P. at all stages including the preparation of electoral rolls and conclude the proceedings expeditiously and at any rate, within a period of six months. The impugned Judgment shall stand modified to the above extent.
6. With the above directions, the civil appeals are disposed of with no order as to costs."
The litigation again ensued before this Court and ended up in another Special Leave to Appeal No. 14501 of 2017 that was disposed of on 8th May, 2017 prior to which Director of Education had already passed an order. Learned counsel submits that against the order of Director of Education a writ petition was filed and then Special Appeal was entertained but the order of this Special appeal, Appellate Bench has not been upturned by the Apex Court and consequently the observations made therein are binding. The election which is now being held is in violation of the said Division Bench judgment and consequently if the election has been held on the basis of wrong Electoral College, the same is absolutely invalid.
The judgment of the Apex Court date 8th May, 2017 is extracted hereinunder:-
"In the impugned judgment, the Division Bench of the High Court has left it to the Director of Education to take a call on the pleas raised by the parties regarding membership.
The first question of law raised by the petitioner reads as follows:-
"(i). Could the court below re open the question related to the composition of the Electoral College when the same was adequately decided by the Director of Education in compliance of this Hon'ble Courts earlier order dated 2.2.2016 passed in Civil Appeal No. 754-55/2016 (Radhey Raman Gupta v. Mahesh Chandra) ?"
According to the petitioner, this Court has already directed in the judgment dated 2.2.2016 that the Director alone shall look into the matter. If as a matter of fact the Director has already fixed the Electoral College, needless to say that he will be free to proceed with the election, as directed by this Court.
The special leave petition is disposed of as above. Pending application (s), if any, shall stand disposed of."
A perusal of the said judgment indicates that it is correct that the order of the Division Bench has not been interfered with but in view of the observations made therein it will not be possible for this Court now to re-enter into the issue of Electoral College and, therefore, in our opinion, the learned Single Judge was absolutely right in making an observation that it would be open to the appellant-petitioner to approach the Apex Court for any such clarification if they are aggrieved on account of aforesaid proceedings.
The special appeal, therefore, is consigned to record.
Order Date :- 30.10.2018 Atmesh