BAVA Vs. MAULANA AZAD SOCIO CULTURAL CENTRE LIBRARY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE revision-petitioners in R. C. R. P. No. 48 of 1975 of the District Court of Ernakulam are the petitioners in this Civil Revision petition. THE matter arises out of a Rent Control Petition filed by respondents 1 and 2 in this petition, namely, an unregistered Society known as THE Maulana azad Socio-Cultural Centre, Library and Reading Room, represented by its president and Secretary, seeking recovery of a building. THE building originally belonged to one Haji Joonus Sail who had leased it to respondents 3 and 4 in this Civil Revision Petition who transferred the building to the present pensioners in 1959. According to the revision petitioners the transfer was with the knowledge of the landlord which fact was disputed by the petitioner in the Rent Control Petition THE 1st respondent Association purchased the building and filed the Rent Control Petition alleging that the original tenants had sublet the building to the petitioners and that the association required the building for its own occupation and also the rent was in arrears. Though respondents 3 and 4 as well as the present petitioners resisted the application for eviction, the Rent Control Court, the appellate authority and the District Court as the revisional court, have held in favour of the landlord and directed eviction.

(2.) A contention had been taken up before the Rent Control court by the present petitioners that as the landlord Association was an unregistered one, the petition as such filed by its President and Secretary, representing the Association was not maintainable. The Rent Control Court took the view that 0. 1 R. 8 of the CPC. was not applicable to the petition and hence the petition filed by the President and the Secretary on behalf of the association was maintainable Before the appellate authority, it would appear that the competence of the President and the Secretary to file a petition on behalf of the Association was not seriously challenged. No doubt, the Court went into the question as to whether a petition filed by an unregistered association is maintainable. On the basis of the provisions of the bye-laws ext. P-12, and a resolution passed by the Association Ext. P13 (a), the court below pointed out that the President and the Secretary had been authorised to initiate the action. In regard to the question, whether, the institution being not a legal person, it is competent for it to maintain the petition, the appellate authority was of the view that because S. 3 Clause. 42 of the General clauses Act defines a person to include an Association whether incorporated or not, the institution is competent to maintain an action in its own name. In the revisional court, it is apparent from the order, the present petitioners did not press their contention that the concerned institution is not entitled to file a petition in its own name. It is contended before me by Shri K. N. Narayana Pillai, learned counsel for the petitioners, that an unregistered association being, in law, capable of not filing a petition, the courts below have committed jurisdictional error in directing eviction on such a petition. It is no doubt true, as pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioners, that as unregistered association cannot maintain an action in its own name. It is pointed out in Halsbury's Laws of England, Third Edition Volume 5 at page 275: "an unincorporated members' club, not being a partnership or legal entity, cannot sue or be sued in the club name, nor can the secretary or any other officer of such a club sue or be sued on behalf of the club, even if the rules purport to give him power to sue and provide for his being sued, unless this is permitted by statute". It is on the basis of this principle that the Calcutta high Court pointed out in Rajendra Nath v. R. C. Turf Club (AIR 1964 Calcutta 57) that a members' club which is an unincorporated and unregistered body is not a legal entity which can be sued in its own name. A club name is not regarded as a compendious name in the sense that a firm name or the trading name of a joint Hindu family business is regarded by business people and the lawyers. In that case Justice Ray, as he then was, even went to the extent of saying that in such a suit it is not a case of misdiscription of the party and the defect was not curable by amendment. In Corporation of Trivandrum v. Narayana Pillai (1968 KLT 285), Justice Mathew pointed out that the Secretary of a club or other association cannot sue alone in respect of a matter in which the Association is interested even if he is authorised so to do by a resolution of the members of the Association. The suit has to be brought by all the members of the Association or by the Secretary on his own behalf and on behalf of the other members under 0. 1 R. 8 of CPC The same would be the result if a suit is brought against the secretary as representing the Association. I might point out here that under the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965, the expression 'landlord' is defined in S. 2 (3 ). S. 2 (3) states: "landlord" includes the person who is receiving or is entitled to receive the rent of a building, whether on his own account or on behalf of another or on behalf of himself and others or as an agent, trustee, executor, administrator, receiver or guardian or who would so receive the rent or be entitled to receive the rent, if the building were let to a tenant. Taking this definition of the word 'landlord' and also the provisions of the bye-laws of the Association concerned, it cannot be denied that the Secretary of the Association would come within the ambit of the word 'landlord' in the act. Therefore, under S. 11 of the Act the Secretary of the Association could have filed the application himself. Instead of filing the application himself what happened in this case was, the Secretary along with the President tiled the petition not on their behalf as such, but as representing the Association. Technically, Mr. Narayana Pillai is correct in stating that the Association could not have filed the petition. But in law the Secretary himself could have filed the petition and the Secretary is really a party to the proceedings here though in the petition he described himself as Secretary representing the association. The question is whether this Court should interfere on account of this technical mistake in its revisional jurisdiction under S. 115 of the C. P. C