Allahabad High Court
Sheodan Singh vs State Of U.P. And 12 Others on 6 April, 2023
Bench: Ajay Bhanot
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 35
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 5501 of 2023
Petitioner :- Sheodan Singh
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 12 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Prem Kumar Chaurasia,Pankaj Lal
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Sankalp Narain
Hon'ble Ajay Bhanot,J.
Heard Shri Pankaj Lal, learned counsel assisted by Shri Prem Kumar Chaurasia, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Ritudhwaj Pratap Sahi, learned counsel for the respondents No.5 to 7.
The sole petitioner claims to be a member of the society and ex-president. The petitioner has submitted an application objecting to the validity of an election claim set up by the respondent no.2.
A Division Bench of this Court in the case of Prem Prakash Vs. State of U.P. reported at 2015 (5) ADJ 420 (DB) considered the locus standi of a single member to challenge the elections of a Committee of Management and held thus:
"8. In Ratan Kumar Solanki (supra), the principle of law which has been laid down by the Division Bench is in the following terms:
"24. What is discernible from the above discussion is where the right of an individual is affected or infringed, and, he has no other effective remedy, if such rights of the individual concerned are borne out from the statute or the provision of bye-laws etc. having the flavour of statute, a writ petition at his instance may be maintainable subject to attracting the condition where the Court may decline to interfere namely availability of alternative remedy, delay, laches etc. but where a legal right of an individual is not directly affected, a writ petition expousing the cause of the collective body or other members of the collective body would not be maintainable at the instance of an individual who himself is not directly affected. We may add here that in a given case, if it is found that an election was held by an imposter and he is supported by DIOS or other educational authorities, such an action of DIOS as also the election can be challenged by the individual member since it cannot be said that he is not a person aggrieved but whether a writ petition at his instance would be maintainable or he can challenge the election by filing a civil suit etc., would be a different aspect of the matter and has to be considered in each and every case considering the facts, relevant provision and other relevant aspects of the matter."
9. These observations indicate that the view of the Division Bench was that where a legal right of an individual is not directly affected, a writ petition espousing the cause of the collective body or of the members of the collective body would not be maintainable at the instance of an individual who himself is not directly affected. In the present case, it is not appropriate to hold that the appellants would not be directly affected having due regard to the case of the appellants that they are members of the society and sought to question the legality of the list of members on the basis of which the elections were held. Particularly having due regard to the earlier orders passed by the learned Single Judges on 3 July 2013 and on 22 January 2014, recognizing the right of the appellants to have their grievance ventilated before the Regional Level Committee, it would not be appropriate for this Court to adopt a different position.
10. A similar situation had in fact emerged before the Division Bench in Nazimuddin vs. State of U.P. and others.
11. We must of course note that the basic issue as to whether writ proceedings should be entertained in a situation, such as the present, is a different matter altogether. The judgment of the Division Bench in Ratan Kumar Solanki (supra) which has been extracted above also indicates that the locus of an individual to move the Court is an issue which is quite distinct from the maintainability of the writ proceedings. In fact, in a subsequent judgment of a Division Bench in Rajveer Singh (supra), this aspect was considered and dealt with in the following observations:
"This Court is already over-burdened with the writ petitions filed by the rival Committees of Management, or the members, who have taken part in the elections, and did not succeed, in the matters arising out of thousands of educational institutions across the State. Every year thousands of writ petitions are being filed. In fact every election of the Committee of Management of education institution is challenged in the High Court, on the question of its recognition by the Regional Deputy Director of Education (now the Regional Level Committee), under Section-16A (7) of the UP Intermediate Education Act, 1921. A single Judge has been assigned determination relating to only such matters. The valuable time of the Court for deciding important questions of law to reduce inequities and injustice in the society, is spent in resolving disputes between rival groups to gain control over the educational institutions for the purpose of access to the funds provided by the State Government. In most of the cases the Courts find that the elections are set up only on papers, without holding election meetings.
If the individual members of the general body of the educational society not directly affected by the election results, are also allowed to file objections and to challenge the elections, the fight for gaining control over the school funds will flood the High Courts with litigation. The election may be challenged by members of the general body separately after raising objections before the educational authorities, and thereafter filing writ petitions on variety of grounds.
We may add here that an individual member in such case, is not without remedy. He may file a suit challenging the elections, to enforce his right of association guaranteed under Section 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution of India."
12. In the present case, the nature of the challenge is such as to implicate the correctness of the list of members on the basis of which elections to the Committee of Management were held. In our view, it would not be appropriate for the High Court under Article 226 to entertain such a petition challenging the result of an election, where several disputed issues of fact would have to be adjudicated. An aggrieved individual has a sufficient remedy available in law in the form of a civil suit having due regard to the provisions of Section 9 of the Code of Civil Procedure 1908.
13. Hence and for these reasons, while we are not in agreement with the view of the learned Single Judge for non suiting the appellants on the ground of locus, we are nonetheless of the view that the ultimate conclusion of the learned Single Judge was right and that the appellants should be relegated to the remedy of filing an ordinary civil suit to pursue their claims."
The judgment of learned Division Bench of this Case in the case of Prem Prakash (supra) is applicable to the facts of this case. It is, however, clarified that the dismissal of this writ petition shall not in any way operate detriment to the petitioner in earlier litigation between the parties which is still pending nor will it effect the right of the petitioner to file a civil suit.
The writ petition is dismissed.
Order Date :- 6.4.2023
Ashish Tripathi
