The main legal point established in the judgment is the limited jurisdiction of the District Registrar to verify and certify amendments to the Memorandum and Rules/Regulations of a Society, emphasizing the requirement for certification by the Registrar for any amendments to have legal effect.

JUDGMENT :

[WP(C) Nos.41273/2023, 43177/2023]

The petitioners in these two writ petitions are stated to be members of an Association of residents of an Apartment Complex by name ‘Willingdon Enclave’, which they say has been registered under the provisions of the Travancore-Cochin Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Registration Act,1955 (‘Act’ for short).

2. Both the writ petitioners assail the order of the District Registrar (General), Ernakulam, refusing to record certain amendments -which they assert have been carried by the General Body of the Association validly -citing reasons that are beyond the statutory scheme and hence untenable and illegal. They thus pray that Ext.P7 in W.P.(C) No.41273/2023 -which is the same as Ext.P9 in W.P.(C) No.43177/2023 -be set aside; and the District Registrar be directed to record the amendments, certified to be true and produced before him by the members of the Governing Council of the Society, in terms of Section 22 of the ‘Act’; and to record the same, as is mandatorily required.

3. Smt. M. Uma Devi – learned counsel for the petitioners, argued that, even an ex facie glance through Section 22 of the ‘Act’ would render it luculent that, all which is necessary under it, is for the Society to produce the amendments to its Memorandum, or to its Rules and Regulations, along with a certificate of it being a true copy, by at least three members of its Governing Body, before the District Registrar, which shall then be accepted by the said Authority, without any further enquiry. She argued that, however, contrary to this, what has been done by the said Authority in this case, is to enter into an untenable investigation into the manner in which the Resolutions were passed by the General Body; to then hold that its meeting do not satisfy the necessary credentials; that the same were not properly adopted by the General Body; thus to issue the impugned order, with a solicitous advice to all the parties that they conduct a proper General Body meeting and adopt the amendments in terms of the Bye-Laws.

4. Smt. M. Uma Devi argued that this procedure by the District Registrar is peremptorily illegal and unlawful; and that, based on the impugned order, the Association then went forward and conducted elections and recorded that certain persons were elected; consequently, constraining the petitioner in W.P.(C) No.43177/2023, to approach this Court assailing such processes also. She pointed out that the individuals who are stated to have been elected subsequent to the issue of the impugned order by the District Registrar have been arrayed as respondents 2 to 8 in the said writ petition; and thus adscititiously prayed that their elections be also declared to be contrary to law.

5. Sri. K. Jaju Babu – learned Senior Counsel, instructed by Sri. Lal K. Jose – learned counsel appearing for the 7th respondent in W.P(C) No.43177/2023, as also for the 2nd respondent in W.P(C) No.41273/2023, argued that the District Registrar was without error in having issued the impugned order because, inter alia, it was stated before him by the person who is stated to have recorded the Resolution, which led to the alleged amendments to the Bye-Laws, that she had not done so. He then pointed out that, the alleged meeting of the General Body – in which the alleged amendments to the Bye-Laws is stated to have been adopted – was found by the District Registrar to have been convened in violation of its own Bye-Laws; and hence that he was fully justified in not having accepted the same. The learned Senior Counsel then argued that the advice offered by the District Registrar to the Association, to present amendments again after convening a fresh meeting of its General Body, was unsolicitous and impermissible because, his jurisdiction is only to either accept the amendments presented before him, or to reject them.

6. Sri. T.M. Sunil – learned counsel for respondent No.9 and Sri. P.K. Aboobacker – learned counsel appearing for responden