VIKRAMAJIT SEN, J.

( 1 ) KEEPING in perspective the urgent nature of these writ petitions, Counter Affidavits being available on the record, and arguments having been heard in full detail, the matter was taken up for final disposal. The vagaries and vicissitudes of public life and elections cannot always be visualized or predicted with precision, as these petitions demonstrate. Shri paramjit Singh Sarna, the President and Shri Ravinder Singh Khurana, General secretary of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee have intractably locked horns with each other. They have their own factions and supporters. The General Secretary had convened the annual elections of the Executive board for 19th December, 2005 in terms of his letter dated 28. 11. 2005. It transpires that in that particular period the President was part of the Jatha which was on pilgrimage to Nankana Sahib, on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan. On his return the President took umbrage at the unilateral decision of the general Secretary; at first he cancelled the election but thereafter allegedly held it on that very same day. This somersault is ironically matched the secretary s stance that the elections could not have been properly and legally conducted on that day, i. e. the one fixed by him. This challenge must, in large measure, be a consequence of the misfortunes of General Secretary s faction since the group has failed to assume any significant semblance of power. This electoral drama which shall be unfurled, amplified and detailed below, is indeed peculiar and unique, with confusion being worse confounded with the passing of each day.

( 2 ) LEARNED Senior Counsel for the Respondents have mounted a challenge to the maintainability of the writ petitions principally on the availability of the alternative and efficacious relief of an election petition. By virtue of Section 31 of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1971 (hereinafter referred to as `the Act) the provisions of sundry sections of the delhi Municipal Corporation Corporation Act, 1957 have mutatis mutandis been made applicable. One of these is Section 15, which stipulates that no election shall be called into question except by an election petition presented to the court of the District Judge within fifteen days from the date of the publication of the result of the election.

( 3 ) IN Gurdeep Singh Dua vs. Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak committee, 59 (1995) Delhi Law Times 115 (DB), almost identical objections had been raised and rejected. The decision was unsuccessfully carried to the Hon ble supreme Court. The ratio of Dua has been applied in another petition filed by the Petitioner titled Avtar Singh Hit vs. Delhi State Sikh Gurdwara Management committee, 84 (2000) Delhi Law Times 781 where a challenge to the maintainability of the writ petition had been obdurately raised yet again. The objection has been interred by the Division Bench and ought not to have been ventilated yet again. The Division Bench in Dua had made the following observations which have the imprimatur of the Supreme Court. 9. Mr. Rohtagi said that minutes of 21 may 1994 could not be read in isolation and that both the minutes of 10 May 1994 and 21 May 1994 go together, and if the minutes of 10 May 1994 fall the minutes of 21 May 1994 must necessarily also fall. He said there were no election as a matter of fact and the whole thing was an eye wash and in contravention of the provisions of the act and the Rules. Mr. Thakur, however, defended minutes of both the meetings and said that no corrupt practice had been alleged and it was not a case of mere nominations but of regular elections as per law and the Court has to first find out the correct facts which cannot be done in a writ petition. Mr. Thakur also said that without the office bearers who have been elected being parties, the petition was not maintainable. Mr. Thakur said that there was no question of surrender of their rights by the members of the Committee in favour of the acting

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