PAWAN KUMAR Vs. SIROMANI GURDWARA PRABHANDAK COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are aggrieved by the act of some of the members of the Managing Committee of the Khasla College at Garhdiwala, District Hoshiarpur in handing over its administration to the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee (for short, SGPC), as declared through its letter dated 14.03.1996 and for a direction against the College from taking over the management and functioning of the College and further direction against the SGPC from taking over the management and for running the College.

(2.) The case was instituted in the year 1996 and it was admitted at the time when the arguments were taken up, that the SGPC has been actually running the institution all these years and there has been no complaint against its administration except from the petitioners themselves. The first petitioner would contend that he was an Honorary Secretary to the erstwhile Managing Committee of the Khalsa College at the relevant time when the writ petition was filed. The second petitioner claims to be the President of the Committee. The petitioners have made reference to an earlier writ petition filed by the second respondent describing himself as Honorary Secretary of the Managing Committee of the Khalsa College against the Panjab University in CWP No.4108 of 1994 when the University had recognized a rival group of persons constituting themselves as office bearers and excluding the second petitioner from the post as Honorary Secretary. The case was disposed of by a Division Bench on 02.02.1996 holding that the issue of whether the Managing Committee which had been elected in the year 1991 of which the second petitioner claimed to the Secretary was validly dissolved and whether fresh elections which were held in 1992 under which the rival body of members were acting as members of the Managing Committee could not be decided in a writ petition and that it should be decided only through a regular civil suit. It further held that the resolution of the University keeping in abeyance the decision of the Vice Chancellor recognizing the second petitioner as the office bearer of the Managing Committee till the decision was rendered by a civil court could not be faulted. Admittedly, the petitioner did not choose to bring such a suit to decide on the validity of the composition of the Managing Committee and had brought a challenge through a writ petition against the SGPC managing its affairs on the ground that the SGPC was a religious body entrusted with administration of certain gurdwaras and it had nothing to do with the running of educational institutions. The other plank on which the petitioners would oppose the handing over of the management to the SGPC was that the Khalsa College was owned and administered by a registered society and the society could transfer its assets only to another society under its bye-laws and in the manner recognized under the Societies Registration Act and not in favour of a religious body constituted under specific enactment for a specific purpose of religious advancement.

(3.) The learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of SGPC and the counsel appearing on behalf of respondents 6 to 21, who are the persons said to be responsible for handing over the management, have entered contest on the petitioners' plea that they are members of the Managing Committee and that they have any locus standi to question the decision of the existing Managing Committee which handed over the management to SGPC. They would point out to the fact that the petitioners' status as members of the Managing Committee was not an admitted one and if the Division Bench of this court had already approved of the decision of the Panjab University and had only allowed for an adjudication through a civil court, the petitioners ought not to have a cause for a complaint that the SGPC had no power to administer the college. They would only point out that even as per the petitioners' contention, the term of office was only upto 1996 and the petitioners have no status to continue as such office bearers of the Managing Committee and maintain the writ petition.