Court No. - 35
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 20385 of 2019 Petitioner :- Sohrab Ali And Another Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Syed Ahmed Faizan,Sri. S.F.A. Naqvi , Senior Counsel Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Mohammad Ali Ausaf
Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.
Heard Sri S.F.A. Naqvi, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Sri Syed Ahmed Faizan, learned Counsel for the petitioners, learned Standing Counsel for respondent nos.1,2 & 3 and Sri Prabhakar Awasthi, learned Counsel for respondent no.4.
Present petition was filed for the following relief:-
"(i) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned order dt. 3.6.2019 (Annexure No.1) passed by respondent No.2.
(ii) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondent No.2 to recognize the list of members of submitted by petitioners committee of management"
On 19.6.2019, an amendment application was filed by the petitioners for amending the writ petition and the relief. The said application was allowed on 19.6.2019 and following prayer was added :-
"(v) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned election notification dt.10.6.2019 issued by respondent No.3, (Annexure No.1 to the present affidavit)."
Today, Sri Prabhakar Awasthi, learned Counsel for respondent no.4 has raised a preliminary objection that the present petition is not maintainable as the election for the committee of management has been notified on 10.6.2019. He has relied upon a Division Bench judgment of this Court in case of Committee of Management, Maharana Pratap Vidyalaya Prabandh Samiti, Bhadwara, Kanpur and another Vs. State of U.P. and others, 2013 (10) ADJ 532 (DB), wherein this Court held as under :-
"9. In order to avoid a large number of writ petitions filed for quashing the orders passed by the educational authorities during the process of elections and in seeking directions to them, we hereby declare that the principles of law laid down by the Supreme Court in N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer, AIR 1952 SC 64; Harcharan Singh v. Mohinder Singh & Ors., AIR 1968 SC 1500; Mohinder Singh Gill & Anr. v. The Chief Election Commissioner, AIR 1978 SC 851; Jyoti Basu & Ors. v. Debi Ghosal & Ors., AIR 1982 SC 983; Harikrishna Lal v. Babu Lal Marandi, (2003) 8 SCC 613 and Shyamdeo Pd. Singh v. Naval Kishore Yadav, (2000) 8 SCC 46 restraining the courts from interfering in the process of election after the elections are notified is equally applicable to the elections of the office bearers of the committee of management of the societies as well as the Committee of Management to be elected in accordance with the provisions of the scheme of administration of the educational institutions. The principles of law that the Courts should keep their hand off in electoral matters and that all election disputes must be tried by the Election Tribunal, is also incorporated in the Constitution of India under Art.329 (b) for the elections of the Parliament or to the house or either house of the legislature, under Art.243 O for the elections of Panchayats and Art.243 ZG in the matter of elections of the municipalities.
10. There is no reason as to why these time tested and settled principles should not be made applicable to the elections of the office bearers of the societies and for the Committee of Management under the scheme of administration of the educational institutions.
11. We have every reason to believe that in future the Court will refuse to interfere in the process of elections until the elections are concluded and will refuse to entertain election disputes and relegate the parties to approach the Election Tribunals or to file civil suit to challenge the results of the elections.
12. The huge pendency in the Court denies access of justice to the thousands of litigants in need of justice from the Court. The filing of frivolous, premature and unnecessary writ petitions take away the valuable time of the Court and clogs the entire justice delivery system. This Court has to be conscious of the fact that writ petitions should be entertained only when parties have acquired a cause of action and have exhausted the alternative remedies before approaching the Court."
Sri S.F.A. Naqvi, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioners submits that the Assistant Registrar, Firms, Societies & Chits, Gorakhpur, respondent no.2 despite the direction of this Court dated 22.11.2018 has wrongly decided the objections. He has relied upon a Division Bench Judgment of this Court in the case of T.P. Singh Vs. Registrar/A.R., Firms Societies decided on 10.10.2018, in which the Court has held as under :-
"55. In the present case, Assistant Registrar in observing that it has no authority to consider objection of petitioner that he has been removed from membership of General Body of Society without following procedure laid down in bye-laws, has failed to exercise statutory jurisdiction vested in it and, therefore, impugned order to this extent cannot be sustained.
56. Writ petition is allowed to the extent that impugned order passed by Assistant Registrar dated 26.8.2017 insofar as it has held that it has no jurisdiction to examine objection raised by petitioner by referring to Section 4-B of Act, 1860 is hereby set aside. Assistant Registrar is directed to examine objection raised by petitioner with regard to his removal from membership of General Body of Society in the light of observations made above and pass appropriate order expeditiously but not later than two months from the date of production of a certified copy of this judgment."
He further relied upon another decision of this Court in Writ C No.29573 of 2017 (C/M Pandit Ambika Prasad Junior High School and another Vs. State of U.P. and 4 others, in which, it was held as under :-
"Under the circumstances, rejection of membership claim merely on the technical ground that the membership receipt was in some other format, in the view of the Court, cannot be sustained. The Assistant Registrar therefore must revisit the issue and pass a fresh order. In so far as the elections set up by the respondents 3 and 4 are concerned, the consideration of fresh election would arise only if the election set up by the petitioners stands discarded. As the election of the petitioners is dependent on the membership issue therefore the Assistant Registrar must consider the membership issue by keeping in mind the bye-laws of the Society and the evidences brought on record so as to ascertain whether the procedure provided in the bye-laws of the Society for induction of members was duly followed or not as also whether the membership fee was credited in the account of the society at the relevant time or not."
I have heard learned Counsel for the parties and perused the material on record.
It is not in dispute that after the order dated 3.6.2019 was passed by respondent no.2, the election for the Committee of Management was notified on 10.6.2019. As this Court in case of Committee of Management, Maharana Pratap Vidyalaya Prabandh Samiti (supra) has held that once the process of election starts and until the same are concluded, Court should refrain from entertaining writ petition regarding election disputes and the parties be relegated either to the Election Tribunals or to file civil suit to challenge the result of the elections.
In the present case, the objections undoubtedly was decided by the respondent no.2 on 3.6.2019 and the election programme was published on 10.6.2019, as such, the present petition is not maintainable. Reliance placed by learned Counsel for the petitioner in case of T.P. Singh (supra), the same was in regard to the dispute regarding the consideration of objection by the Assistant Registrar regarding his removal from membership of the general body without following procedure laid down in the bye-laws, while in the present case after the objections were decided, the election has already been notified.
In view of the said fact, I decline to interfere in the said matter, writ petition stands dismissed.
Order Date :- 24.6.2019 S. Singh