MAHABIR Vs. ANJUMAN WAZIFATUL MUSLIMIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts out of which this application for revision arises are stated in the judgment of the trial Court. The correctness of the decision is assailed on more than one ground. The first is that the Anjuman Wazifatul Muslimin is an unregistered association which could neither sue nor be sued, unless all the members of the association were impleaded. That this is so is clear from a number of decisions of this Court among which may be mentioned the following : Ganesha Singh V/s. Mundi Forest Co. (1899) 21 All 346, Panchaiti Akhara V/s. Gauri Kuar (1898) 20 All 167, N.W.P. Club V/s. Sadullah (1898) 20 All 497 and Ram Sarup v. The Arya Samaj Dharampur 1925 All 337. At this stage however it appears that the plaintiff is not the Anjuman Wazifatul. Mr. Aziz, secretary of the Anjuman, applied for leave to sue in a representative capacity, and the Court after the usual proceedings under Order 1, Rule 8 gave him permission to sue, so that the real plaintiff is Mr. Aziz suing in a representative capacity for the members of the Anjuman. The trial Court in discussing this question made use of the expression "an unregistered society like the present plaintiff can sue", but this is clearly wrong, as the decision quoted above shows.

(2.) The trial Court has decided that the gift was in favour of Mr. M.A. Aziz as secretary of the association, but it has been contended on behalf of the opposite party here that the gift was really made to Mr. Aziz. The deed of transfer is to the following effect: I desire that I may spend the money in the name of God. Therefore I have decided to transfer the rights in the said promissory note to the Anjuman for the purpose of scholarships, Therefore I have executed this document in favour of Mr. Aziz in his capacity as secretary, and gifted the promissory note in favour of the said gentleman, and he has accepted the gift.

(3.) If the gift had been made to Mr. Aziz in his personal capacity he could have sued on the basis of the promissory note and there would have been no difficulty. But it is maintained that this document had the effect of transferring the promissory note, not to Mr. Aziz in his personal capacity, but to the Anjuman. This difficulty will be met in any case if Mr. Aziz is allowed, to sue as the representative of the Anjuman, as has been done. Finally it has been argued that assuming the gift to be made to the Anjuman, that association not being a registered association is not capable of being the recipient of a gift. There is some authority for this proposition in Mathura Kuer V/s. Dharam Samaj 1917 All 94. The circumstances there appear to have been quite different. The finding of the Court was that the Anjuman, the unregistered body in whose favour the gift was said to have been made, had no definite existence until it was registered subsequently to the gift. There was therefore nobody "who were capable of having the property transferred by the deed of 1908." The deed purported merely to transfer the property to the Anjuman. In the present case there does not appear to be anything indefinite about the identity of the body, and there was certainly nothing indefinite in the wishes of the transferor. The property was to be handed over to Mr. Aziz for the use of the Anjuman. In Bhagwan Das Singh V/s. Pinjra Pole Pashu Anathalaya 1927 All. 789, a Bench of this Court held that although an unregistered society cannot sue or be sued unless all the members are impleaded, there never has been a rule that such an unregistered society cannot hold property. It is not a fact that they have no legal existence at all, though for purposes of proceedings in Court such a society is not a juridical person.