Shri Shuzabad Sabha Nai Sadak Lashkar ... vs Suresh Arora @ Vasudev
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Madhya Pradesh High Court

Shri Shuzabad Sabha Nai Sadak Lashkar ... vs Suresh Arora @ Vasudev on 8 January, 2025

Author: Milind Ramesh Phadke

Bench: Milind Ramesh Phadke

                                      1

       IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
                              AT GWALIOR
                                 BEFORE
  HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE MILIND RAMESH PHADKE
              REVIEW PETITION No. 1231 of 2024
    SHRI SHUZABAD SABHA NAI SADAK LASHKAR
 GWALIOR THROUGH ADHYAKSH MAHESH ARORA AND
                   OTHERS
                    Versus
      SURESH ARORA @ VASUDEV AND OTHERS

Appearance:

Shri Raghvendra Dixit - Advocate for the petitioners.

Shri Anand Bhardwaj - Advocate for the respondents.


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        Reserved on                           10/12/2024
        Delivered on                          08/01/2025
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                                ORDER

The present review petition has been preferred for recalling of the order dated 27.08.2024 passed in W.P. No.29107/2023, whereby an innocuous relief of directing the Assistant Registrar (respondent no.3) to conduct the elections of the society under his supervision was passed with a further direction that he may supervise elections and in case he finds that the election process is

not in order, then he may direct the Society to get the elections conducted within a period of 7 days. The said directions were issued upon consensus arrived at between the petitioners in the writ petition and respondent no.4 and 5 therein i.e. present review petitioners. By the said order it was further observed that the election conducted in pursuance to the said order shall be subject to enquiry, if any, pending in regard to mis-management of society as alleged.

2. Learned counsel for the review petitioners has raised two fold grounds in support of his arguments, the first being that once election process of a Managing Committee had started, then no interference ought to have been made at the stage when the election process was set in motion and directing the sub-registrar to supervise the elections of the review petitioners/society amounts to interference in the election process, which in wake of judgment of the Apex Court in the matter of Shri Sant Sadguru Janardhan Swamy vs. State of Maharashtra reported in 2001 (8) SCC 509 is not permissible and secondly, the consensus recorded by the previous counsel of the petitioner/society was an inadvertent mistake and could not have been put forth as it was against the law and since it is well settled that if any wrong concession against the law is recorded by the counsel, it is not binding upon the parties as has been held by the Apex Court in the matter of Himalayan Co-operative Group Housing Society vs. Balwant Singh and Ors. Reported in 2015 (7) SCC 373 and had

later been followed by the Apex Court in the matter of Director of Elementary Education vs. Pramod Kumar Sahoo passed in Civil Appeal No.7557/2019 dated 26.09.2019.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also tried to raise a ground that since no enquiry is pending with regard to mis- management of the society, therefore, the observation made in para 6 of the order that the election conducted shall be subject to the enquiry is required to be deleted, but after arguing for a while said argument was withdrawn.

4. On the aforesaid two fold arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the order impugned herein, deserves to be reviewed and recalled and the petition be heard on its own merits.

5. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent no.1 to 4 had vehemently opposed the contentions raised by the counsel for the petitioner and had submitted that the order under review was passed by this Court only after it was proposed by the counsel for the review petitioners that he is ready to get the elections conducted under the supervision of some authority so that grievance of the petitioner may not be that impartial elections were not held and in wake of the said concession given by the counsel for the review petitioners, on behalf of respondents no.1 to 4/petitioners, the proposal was accepted and on the basis of the concessions arrived at between the contesting parties, this Court has directed to get the elections conducted under the supervision

of Assistant Registrar (respondent no.3) and now at this juncture another counsel appearing on behalf of the said respondent no.4 and 5/review petitioners cannot resile from the said concession. In that regard he had placed reliance in the matter of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board & Anr vs N. Raju Reddiar & Anr reported in 1997 (9) SCC 736.

6. While placing reliance in the matter of Om Prakash vs Suresh Kumar reported in 2020 (13) SCC 188, it was argued that it is not the case of the review petitioners that they had expressly instructed their counsel appearing in the writ petition not to make such concession as from the bare perusal of the vakalatnama given by the review petitioners to their earlier counsel it could be gathered that said counsel was authorised to appear, act and plead in the aforesid case/proceeding review and review or recall of orders passed in the proceedings and since the earlier counsel was specifically engaged for pleading the case of the review petitioners, at this juncture, it cannot now be said that he was not authorised to give the concession.

7. It was also argued that from the grounds raised in the review petition, it could not be gathered as to how the concession given by the earlier counsel was against the law as this Court while passing the order had not directed the Assistant Registrar to exercise any powers under M.P. Societies Registration Act, 1973 rather had just directed him to supervise the election process.

8. Thus, it was submitted that no ground as required for

review of the order passed by this Court has been made out, therefore, the present review petition deserves to be dismissed.

9. Heard the counsels for the parties and perused the record.

10. The provisions of review are detailed in Section 114 and Order 47 Rule 1 of CPC which are the substantive provisions. Glance on the aforesaid provisions make it clear that a review application would be maintainable on (I) discovery of new and important matters or evidence which, after exercise of due diligence, were not within the knowledge of the applicant or could not be produced by him when the decree was passed or the order made; (ii) on account of some mistake or error apparent on the face of the record; or (iii) for any other sufficient reason.

11. In the present case the first two eventualities do not exist. For the third eventuality i.e. any other sufficient reason, though the present review application would be maintainable, this Court finds that learned counsel for the review petitioners had tried to put forth an argument before this Court that since there is no provision under the Act of 1973 with regard to any supervisory powers appended with the Assistant Registrar, the directions for conducting of the elections under his supervision is bad in law and unwarranted and secondly, the concession given by the earlier counsel in the writ petition on behalf of the review petitioners since is against the law, the order impugned deserves to be recalled and reviewed.

12. So far as the first contention is concerned, this Court is of

the view that no directions have been issued to the Assistant Registrar to exercise any powers under the Act of 1973, it was only in wake of certain complaints that it was agreed between the parties that for fair elections some authority may be appointed who would just monitor the fair play and none else. Even otherwise no provision of the Act of 1973 had been brought to the notice of this Court which could debar such a direction, thus, when this Court has not directed the Assistant Registrar to exercise any of the powers as contained under the Act of 1973, the directions for supervising the elections would not amount to interference with the process. Thus, this argument has no force.

13. So far as the argument that the concession given by the earlier counsel in the writ petition on behalf of review petitioners was against the law, this Court finds that no material is placed before this Court to show as to how the said concession given by the earlier counsel is against the law and it is trite that mere alleging that an act is wrong would not make the said act wrong and the allegations are required to be supported by cogent material which is missing herein. Thus, this ground has also no force.

14. Even otherwise, it is not the case of the review petitioner that the earlier counsel was expressly instructed not to make such statement or give such concession. Thus, in absence thereof, the statement made to the Court by the counsel would be binding on the petitioner.

14. Therefore, according to this Court there is no sum and substance in the present review petition, the same is hereby dismissed.

                                               (Milind Ramesh Phadke)
                                                        Judge
chandni/                                             08/01/2025
     CHANDNI
     NARWARIYA
     2025.01.08
     15:24:10
     +05'30'