IMPORTANT POINT
Bonafide proceedings need not be nipped in bud.

JUDGMENT

Dinesh Kumar Singh-I, J.—This application under section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code has been moved with a prayer that the proceedings in complaint case No. 984 of 2016 (Jasveer Singh Khalsa vs Sardar Jagmeet Singh and others) be quashed whereby the accused applicants have been summoned to face trial under section 500 IPC.

2. The contention of the learned counsel for the accused applicants is that due to a dispute of Committee of Management between the accused applicants and the opposite party No. 2, both the sides have filed criminal cases against each other and the dispute was also placed before the Registrar Firms, Societies and Chits, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and the present complaint under section 500 of the Criminal Procedure Code is also filed by the opposite party No. 2 against the accused applicants by way of creating pressure upon them. It has been mainly argued that the case of the applicant accused is covered under seventh exception as provided under section 499 IPC. The learned counsel has relied upon a large number of rulings in support of his contentions which would be cited at the relevant place.

2. The record reveals that the applicants have narrated the background of dispute as follows to expose the intention of opposite party No. 2 to malafidely file cases against the accused applicants to create pressure. There is a Society by the name Shri Guru Singh Sabha, situated at Thapar Nagar, Meerut, registered under the Societies Registration Act, which also controls the Management of Khalsa Inter College, Meerut. The election of the Society was held in the year 2007 - 08, in which Sardar Tilak Singh was elected as President and Sardar Jagmeet Singh Meet (applicant No. 2) was elected General Secretary and Jasveer Singh Khalsa (opposite party No. 2) was elected as one of the secretaries. The term of the aforesaid Committee of Management was 5 years, which was illegally extended by the opposite party No. 2 and his associates up to 2015. Applicant No. 2 made a complaint about this against the opposite party No. 2 before District Inspector of Schools, Meerut. In the meantime the President of the Society, Sardar Tilak Singh expired in the month of June, 2015 which resulted in rescheduling of elections to be held in the year 2015. No election of the Society was held after the death of the President. The opposite party No. 2 in collusion with his associates submitted a list of elected office bearers of the Society for the year 2015 - 16 in the office of Sub- Registrar, Firms, Societies and Chits, Meerut (to be referred as Registrar in short) for renewal of the Society, in which the elder brother of the opposite party No. 2 was shown elected as the President. When the applicant No. 2 came to know about the submission of the list of the office bearers by opposite party No. 2 in the office of Sub-Registrar, Firms, Societies and Chits, he immediately filed a complaint on 26/9/2015 before the authority concerned requesting to take action against opposite party No. 2 and also to appoint a receiver. A meeting of general body was decided to be convened to conduct the election of the Management Committee of the Society, in which among other agenda items, the illegal activities of opposite party No. 2 was also discussed. On 1/10/2015 the election proceedings of the society were held, in which applicant No. 2 was elected as President, applicant No. 1 as Senior Vice President, applicant No. 3 as Executive Member and applicant No. 4 as Press Secretary. The intimation was given on 5/10/2015 of the election to the Sub-Registrar and the District Inspector of Schools, Meerut about the newly elected members/office bearers. On 8/9/2015 the opposite party No. 2 illegally, without informing the members of the Society in collusion with his associates, held a meeting without any authority, in which only few members participated and passed a decision, by which the membership of the General Secretary (applicant No. 2) was terminated