DIPESH MEHTA Vs. GERALD SHIRLEY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A. BACKGROUND & LITIGATION HISTORY : This common order and judgment will dispose of a group of Appeals and their associated Notices of Motion. There are four Appeals before us:

(2.) The litigation history is complex. It has gone through many twists and turns over the last seven years. The litigation has also taken an unconscionable amount of the Court's time given the narrow nature of the controversy before us.

(3.) What we are concerned with is an elite membership Club in South Mumbai. This is the Breach Candy Swimming Bath. It is operated by the Breach Candy Swimming Bath Trust, a public charitable Trust registered under the Provisions of Maharashtra Public Trust Act 1950 ("MPT Act"). As we shall presently see, though the Trust is registered under the MPT Act, there is also a constitution and, perhaps unlike many other public charitable trusts, there is a governance according to this constitution. That governance includes a definition of various types or classes or categories of membership, provision for elections to the management, etc. The Trust is not also registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act 1860. Even so, there is this constitution that controls day-to-day management, operations and control of the Club itself.