Court No. - 29
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL No. - 211 of 2019 Appellant :- Ramphal Singh And 6 Others Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others Counsel for Appellant :- Bajrang Bahadur Singh,P.N. Saxena, Senior Advocate,Satya Prakash Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Rahul Mishra
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.
Heard Sri P.N. Saxena, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri S.P. Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner- appellants, Sri Rahul Mishra, learned counsel for the respondent no. 5 and learned Standing Counsel for the State-respondents.
The dispute is regarding the election of Committee of Management- Sarvhitkari Inter College, Binauli, District- Baghpat. The elections of the said Committee of Management was held on 14.04.2013. In respect of the said election, a dispute was raised before the Regional Level Committee, which came to be decided against the petitioner-appellants who filed Writ Petition No. 34964 of 2014 inter alia contending about 150 persons had illegally participated in the said elections. The said writ petition remained pending, however, with no interim order therein.
In the meantime, a fresh election programme was announced in April, 2016. This election programme announced by the Committee of Management (in power), was challenged by the petitioner-appellants by filing another Writ Petition No. 18973 of 2016 (Bhopal Singh and 5 Others). This petition was dismissed vide order dated 27.04.2016 holding that as the elections had already been notified, grievance, if any, to the said election can always be subjected to challenge in the appropriate forum after the outcome of the election and in case, if such challenge is made, the appropriate authority shall decide the dispute without being influenced by the observations made in that order.
Despite the above order having been passed on 27.04.2016 and the fact that the fresh elections were held and the result was declared on 01.05.2016, no challenge to the said elections was made by the petitioner- appellants for almost two years. It was only after about two years that the petitioner-appellants filed an application to amend the Writ Petition No. 34964 of 2014 to challenge the subsequent elections dated 01.05.2016. After observing that the amendment application was filed after a gap of two years from the date fresh election, the writ court has dismissed the writ petition as having become infructuous in view of the above fresh cause of action arising due to the elections dated 01.05.2016.
A bare perusal of the earlier order dated 27.04.2016 passed in Writ Petition No. 18973 of 2016 reveals that the petitioner-appellants were given liberty to challenge the outcome of the fresh elections before the appropriate forum. Therefore, the petitioner-appellants had the opportunity to raise the dispute of the validity of the said elections before the Regional Level Committee or by filing a writ petition but this was not done by the petitioner- appellants. The petitioner-appellants only moved an application to amend the earlier writ petition so as to challenge the subsequent election. The application for amendment was moved after a gap of two years and as such it suffered from laches.
In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances since the petitioner-appellants failed to avail the opportunity to challenge the elections dated 01.05.2016 within the reasonable time and allowed more than two years to pass-by and no endeavour was made by them to challenge the same either by means of raising a dispute before the Regional Level Committee or before any writ forum the amendment sought in the earlier writ petition after lapse of two years certainly suffered from delay and laches. In such a situation if the petitioner-appellants have not been allowed to challenge the subsequent elections by means of the amendment application and the earlier writ petition has been dismissed as infructuous there is no illegality. In this regard, it may be noted, the delay and laches had not been explained at all.
We do not find any illegality which may result in miscarriage of justice as has been sought to be urged before us. In the event there is any dispute of the membership of the general body, the same can be sorted out by taking recourse to civil remedies.
Special appeal stands dismissed.
Order Date :- 25.2.2019 Abhilash