Court No. - 34
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL No. - 520 of 2019 Appellant :- Committee Of Management,Sri Kamasi Devi Shiksha Samiti And 2 Others Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Appellant :- Shiv Nath Singh,Akhilesh Kumar Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Alok Dwivedi
Hon'ble Sudhir Agarwal,J. Hon'ble Rajendra Kumar-IV,J.
1. Heard Sri Shiv Nath Singh, learned counsel for appellant, learned Standing Counsel for State respondents, Sri Alok Dwivedi, learned counsel for respondent and perused the record.
2. This intra-Court appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of Allahabad High Court Rules, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as "Rules, 1952") has arisen from judgment dated 02.04.2019 passed by learned Single Judge in Writ Petition No.53183 of 2017 holding that writ petition has rendered infructuous and accordingly it has been dismissed.
3. Appellants filed above writ petition challenging Deputy Registrar, Firms, Societies and Chits, Kanpur Region Kanpur (hereinafter referred to as “Deputy Registrar”) order dated 23.6.2016 whereby it has directed to register list of Committee of Management as submitted by petitioner 2 for the year 2016-17 and another order dated 06.10.2017 passed by Deputy Registrar, whereby he rejected representation of petitioner 2 and others and accepted representation of Uma Shanker Shukla and directed to register Management Committee as claimed by Uma Shanker Shukla for the year 2017-18.
4. The facts in brief giving rise to present writ petition are that Sri Kamasi Devi Shiksha Samiti, Village and Post Nadiha Bujurg, Kanpur Nagar (hereinafter referred to as “Society”), is a Society registered under Societies Registration Act, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as “Act, 1860”). It was registered vide Registration No.410/1980-81 dated 12.5.1980. The registration of Society was renewed from time to time and lastly it was renewed on 21.4.2015 with effect from 12.4.2014 for a period of five years. As per Memorandum of Association and Bye-laws of Society, one Ram Gopal Shukla was the Founder President and Shiv Ratan Singh was a Founder Member of the Society. It contemplates three categories of members namely Life Member, Associate Member and Annual Member. Life Member can be enrolled on deposit of membership fee of Rs.1,001/-. An Associate Member is one who is devoted to services of Society and Annual Member can be enrolled on deposit of Annual Membership fee of Rs.21/- per year. There can be only eight Associate Members as maximum strength is prescribed in the Bye Laws. The tenure of a Annual Member commences on 1st of January of calendar year and continued till 31st December. The Society is to be managed by Committee of Management comprising of 50 members including 5 Office Bearers, i.e., President, a Vice President, a Manager, an Assistant Manager and a Treasurer.
5. As per Bye-laws, Manager is to be nominated by Associate Members while remaining members and Office Bearers are elected by the Society by holding election and by majority votes. Last election of Committee of Management was held on 23.12.2014 in which Shiv Ratan Singh was elected as President and Ram Gopal Shukla as Manager. At that point of time, General Body consisted of eleven members since twelfth member i.e. Ram Bharosey Verma had already expired. Besides, there were three ex-officio members, namely, Principal and two teacher representatives of the College managed by aforesaid Society. List of members and Office Bearers of Committee of Management constituted on 23.12.2014 was submitted to Deputy Registrar for registration for the year 2014-15 containing names of following :
6. Ram Gopal Shukla, however, submitted another minutes of proceedings dated 06.5.2015 showing that two members were inducted in General Body i.e. Ravi Shanker Tiwari and Vipin Kumar Shukla and out of above two members, Sri Ravi Shanker Tiwari was elected as Member against vacancy position in Committee of Management.
7. Appellants, on acquiring this knowledge submitted their objection before Deputy Registrar on 18.8.2015. Notice was issued by Deputy Registrar to Ram Gopal Shukla on 16.9.2015. On 31.03.2016, a General Body meeting was convened and following decisions were taken :
i) Sri Ram Yadav who was the founder Principal of the institution was enrolled as a life member after his retirement.
ii) 6 new members, namely, Sri Ram Singh, Shyam Sunder, Manoj Singh, Dev Sharan, Ram Sanehi and Nafis Ahmad were enrolled as members.
iii) A decision was taken to issue a show cause notice against the Manager, Ram Gopal Shukla for his activities including submitting forged documents before the Assistant Registrar.
8. On 6th April, 2016, against vacant post of Member in the Committee of Management, Ram Singh was elected. The aforesaid proceedings were filed before Deputy Registrar along with letter dated 11.4.2016. Respondent 3 however set up rival claim that Ram Gopal Shukla has resigned and in his place, in the meeting dated 25.5.2016, Uma Shanker Shukla was elected as Manager and Vipin Kumar Shukla was elected as Deputy Manager. The said papers were submitted by Sri Uma Shanker Shukla in the office of Deputy Registrar on 16.6.2016. Deputy Registrar registered aforesaid list submitted by Sri Uma Shanker Shukla for the year 2016-17 without giving any opportunity to the appellants. When appellants got information, he filed objection, a copy whereof has been filed as Annexure 15 to the writ petition. Thereafter, Deputy Registrar issued notice on 15.12.2016 and after concluding hearing, passed order dated 28.01.2017 cancelling registered list for the year 2016-17 and 2015-16 submitted by respondent 3 and instead registered list submitted by petitioner 2 on 11.4.2016 for the year 2016-17.
9. This order dated 28.01.2017 was challenged before this Court by respondent 3 in Writ Petition NO.19572 of 2017. Court allowed writ petition and relevant extract of order reads as under :
“Upon hearing the learned counsel for the parties and after going through the record, it transpires that the Deputy Registrar, without any basis, rejected the lists as were registered for the years 2015-16 and 2016-17 simply because of certain meetings which were held on 6.5.2015 and 26.5.2015 were not conducted under the president-ship of Sri Shiv Ratan Singh and also because the decision on the list as was presented by Sri Shiv Ratan Singh on 11.4.2016 was still pending. The impugned order, therefore, could not have been passed.
The counsel for both the parties have agreed that the order may be set aside and the Deputy Registrar may be directed to consider the matter afresh.
Accordingly, the order dated 28.01.2017 is set aside and the matter is remitted to the Deputy Registrar ? respondent no. 2, who shall after considering all the circumstances and after looking into all the documents, pass a reasoned order as to which list of members had to be registered. Till the decision is arrived at by the Deputy Registrar, the work which has to be done by the Manager shall be done by such an office bearer as would be authorized under the Bye-Laws.
This exercise shall be completed within a period of two months. Since the matter is being remanded back for a fresh decision, all arguments as shall be raised by the parties shall be considered by the Deputy Registrar.
In the light of the aforesaid observations, the writ petition is disposed of.”
10. Thereafter, Deputy Registrar proceeded further and vide order dated 06.10.2017 accepted claim submitted by Sri Uma Shanker Shukla. This order dated 06.10.2017 was challenged in above writ petition since the list accepted by Deputy Registrar was only for the year 2017-18. Learned Single Judge has found that aforesaid period having expired, writ petition has rendered infructuous.
11. Learned counsel for appellant submitted that dispute of Office bearers of appropriate Committee of Management and who is entitled to manage affairs of Society further is a continuous process and therefore, it was necessary for learned Single Judge to decide the issue, even if formal registration made by Deputy Registrar in the order impugned in the writ petition was only for the year 2017-18 since dispute is continuing since 2015-16.
12. In our view, dispute pertains to rival Committee of Management can either be decided by Prescribed Authority under Section 25(1) of Act, 1860 or if there is any dispute of membership, parties have remedy in common law by filing suit for declaration.
13. In the present case, Registrar, only for the purpose of smooth management of Society, has registered list in record but it has no authority to declare as to which Committee of Management is validly elected. Therefore, writ petition filed by appellants before this Court was not proper remedy and it is always open to appellants to avail remedy by seeking a reference to Prescribed Authority under Section 25 of Act, 1860 and this remedy is available even today.
14. Therefore, while upholding ultimate decision of learned Single Judge of dismissal of writ petition, we observe that it is open to appellants to avail appropriate remedy as observed above in appropriate Forum.
15. Appeal is accordingly dismissed with above observation.
Order Date :- 30.4.2019 KA