BHOPALWALA ARYA HIGHER SECONDARY PRABANDHAK SAMITI SRI GANGANAGAR Vs. REGISTRAR OF CO OPERATIVE SOCIETIES RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BOTH the writ petitions, noted above, have been filed by the same petitioner against the same respondent under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India, and since they are inter-connected, they are disposed of together.

(2.) IT is common ground between the parties that the petitioner Bhopalwala Arya Higher Secondary School Prabandhak Samiti, which will hereinafter be referred as the 'samiti', is a registered society. IT was registered for the first time on 20th October, 1956, under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (Central Act No. 21 of 1860) as adapted to the pre-reorganised State of Rajasthan by the Rajasthan Ordinance of 1950. The said Act (Societies Registration Act, 1860) was repealed by the Rajasthan Societies Registration Act No. 28 of 1958 which will hereinafter be referred as the 'new Act'. Sec. 21 (2) of the new Act, however, provided that all societies registered under the repealed Act shall be deemed to have been registered under the new Act, if they may be registered thereunder. By virtue of this sub-section, the Samiti was deemed to have been registered under the new Act. IT was established for the promotion of education and literature in the district of Sri Ganganagar. IT managed a school located at Sri Ganganagar. This School was, at that time, called "bhopalwala Arya High School". IT was later upgraded as a Higher Secondary School and was known as "bhopalwala Arya Higher Secondary School Sri Ganganagar" before the present writ applications were filed. Though the school is managed by the Samiti, it is a Government aided school ; it receives grant in-aid from the Government of Rajasthan. At the time when the Samiti was registered, it had filed a copy of the Pules and Regulations of the Society with the Registrar, which was named as 'vidhan' (Constitution ). In 1957, the Government of Rajasthan framed Rajasthan Education Code, 1957.

(3.) NOW, in the present case, it is common ground between the parties, as pointed out above, that the Bhopalwala Arya Ucha Vidhalaya Prabandhak Samiti, Sri Ganganagar, which was registered as a society on 20th October, 1956, continued to remain on the register maintained by the respondent till the beginning of the year 1963. It is not denied by the respondent that the Samiti had sent to the respondent a list of the names of its office-bearers and members and a copy of the amended constitution with its letter dated 24th April, 1963 (Ex. 18) under the signature of its President Shri Trilochan Dutt. To this the respondent replied by his letter dated 2nd May, 1963 (Ex. 19) that the amended constitution should be signed by three members. The Samiti then sent the signed copy of the constitution with its letter dated 7th May, 1963 (Ex. 20) and on 16th May, 1963 the respondent was requested by another letter (Ex. 21) to furnish a copy thereof. The perusal of letter No. 48348 dated 22nd June, 1963 sent by the respondent to the Samiti (Ex. 14) shows that the copy of the amended constitution was supplied to the Samiti. It is clear that upto 22nd June, 1963 there was no dispute between the parties. The trouble arose when the Samiti wrote a letter on 7th August, 1963 (Ex. 6) to the respondent informing him that the society had further amended its constitution in order to bring it in accord with the Revised Grant-in-aid Rules framed by the Government of Rajas-than and a copy of the amended constitution was filed therewith. It is significant to note that in the amended constitution, Rule No. 1 was amended whereby the name of the society was changed to "bhopalwala Arya Higher Secondary School Prabandhak Samiti, Sri Ganganagar". The respondent did not refuse to register the change of name under sec. 18 of the new Act. On the contrary, this change was accepted and a correction was made in the register accordingly. In other words, the changed name of the samiti was registered and a certified copy of the change was also furnished to the Samiti (Ex. 22 ). It was rather strange that the respondent thus accepted the amended Rules and regulations in part and refused to place on record the rest. This is an obvious inconsistency on his part because he could not hold the Samiti validly constituted for making one change and not the other. It was curious that by his letter No. 78053 dated 15th October, 1963 (Ex. 7), he wrote to the Samiti saying that the amended copy of the constitution filed by it could not be registered because the Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar, had raised an objection to the effect that the change could be done only with its consent. Learned Government Advocate has placed on record a copy of the order passed by the respondent on 30th September, 1963 on the order-sheet and pointed out that the said reply was sent because of this order. The perusal of this order shows that the Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar, had sent to the respondent an application and a document and from their perusal the respondent thought that the Samiti could not amend its constitution, because the property of the school could not be disposed of without the consent of the Arya Samaj and that no amendment could be made in the Rules and Regulations in violation of the principles of the Arya Samaj. The Samiti has urged that in the amended constitution it had made no provision for the disposal of the property of the school without the consent of the Arya Samaj nor had it made any amendment in violation of the principles of the Arya Samaj and that this order was, therefore, incorrect and was passed by the respondent without going through the amended rules and regulations. Learned Government Advocate has not been able to point out to us if in the amended Rules and Regulations there was any such change as is referred to in the said order. It appears from the respondent's letter dated 15th October, 1963 (Ex. 7) and the subsequent correspondence which passed between the parties, that the respondent refused to supply the copy of the amended Rules and Regulations which form the subject-matter of writ petition No. 722 of 1964, on the ground that an objection was raised by the Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar. Similarly, the perusal of the correspondence, which passed between the parties in 1964 and particularly the Samiti's letters dated 29th January, 1964 (Ex. 15) and 5th March, 1964 (Ex. 17) and the respondent's letters dated 24th February, 1964 (Ex. 16) and 25th April, 1964 (Ex. 23), shows that the respondent refused to accept the annual list and the copy of the amended constitution upto date because an objection was filed by the Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar. The respondent's next objection was that in the original constitution which was filed in 1956, it was necessary to give representation of five members to the Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar. We have not been referred to any provision under the Rajasthan Societies Act empowering the respondent to entertain the objection raised on behalf of the Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar, and decide the dispute which arose on the basis of the original constitution filed in October, 1956. As pointed out above, the respondent had already placed on record an amended constitution of the Samiti with its letter dated 24th April, 1963 (Ex. 18) and even its certified copy was furnished by the respondent to the Samiti vide Ex. 14. In our opinion, he acted without jurisdiction in ignoring this amended constitution and going behind it and referring to the original constitution. He had accepted the amended constitution and the names of the members of the new Committee, according to which Shri Trilochan Dutt was the President of the Samiti. Thereafter, he was left with no authority to refuse to recognise Shri Dutt as the President of the Samiti or to refuse to place on record the amendments which were made by the Samiti and sent to the respondents by the said President. The result of the respondent's refusal to recognise Shri Trilochan Datt as the President of the Samiti or to recognise the new Samiti would have been that he could not take any action against them or anybody else under sec. 4-B of the new Act for non-compliance of sec. 4 or 4-A. We have not been referred to any provision in the Act whereby the respondent could refuse to give recognition to the documents which were duly filed with him under secs. 4 or 4-A and which were placed by him on record as coming from the proper source and whose copies were also given by him to the office bearers of the society. It was this Samiti which filed with the respondent signed copy of the alterations made in the Rules and Regulations with its letter dated 7th August, 1963 (Ex. 6) and which remained with the respondent till 15th October, 1963 when he refused to give its copy. We have not. been referred to any provision of law whereby the Registrar could refuse to place on record the annual list filed with him under sec. 4 or other documents filed under sec. 4-A if they are signed by three of the governors, directors, trustees or members of the governing body. In the present case, the relevant papers were filed with the respondent, after they were signed by the members of the governing body. The Arya Samaj, Sri Ganganagar, which had filed objection before the respondent did not claim to be a number of the governing body. The respondent should have, therefore, directed it to take recourse to law if it had any objection about the valid constitution of the Samiti. The respondent should not have assumed the role of a Court and proceeded to examine the validity of the constitution of the Samiti on the basis of Ex. 1 which from his own record stood amended as per Ex. 14. Sec. 19 of the new Act provides that any person may inspect all documents filed with the Registrar under the Act on payment of a fee mentioned therein and that any person may require a copy or extract of any document or part of any document to be certified by the Registrar on payment of the amount given therein. The provision of this section makes it quite clear that the documents filed with the Registrar are public documents and any person who needs copies of those documents may inspect them and obtain certified copies iff only he pays the required amount. The person or society which files the annual list) or other documents mentioned in secs. 4 or 4-A, is certainly entitled as of right to obtain from the Registrar copies of the annual list and other documents filed under secs. 4 or 4-A. The respondent had, therefore, no jurisdiction to refuse to give to the Samiti the copies of the documents which it had filed under sec. 4-A of the new Act.