Honble Janardan Sahai, J.—The Kshettriya Shri Gandhi Ashram, Deoria is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. Under the bye-law No. 10 of the Bye-laws of the society the members of the society are to elect members of the Prabandh Samiti. Under bye-law No. 14 ordinary members of the committee of management are to be elected for 3 years. Under bye-law No. 21 the Secretary is to be elected by the committee of management. The dispute in the present writ petition relates to the election to the post of Secretary. It appears that a list of members of the committee of management for the year 2001-2002 was filed under Section 4 (1) of the Societies Registration Act and in that list the names of Satya Narain Tripathi petitioner No. 1 in Writ Petition No. 33392 of 2006 and the respondent No. 4 Mahendra Nath Dubey were also included. In the year 2003 two rival claims to the post of Secretary were set up one by the petitioner No. 1 Satya Narain Tripathi and the other by the respondent No. 4 Mahendra Nath Dubey. The Assistant Registrar, Firms, Societies and Chits, Gorakhpur passed an order dated 11.7.2003 and approved the proceedings dated 24.4.2003 submitted by Mahendra Nath Dubey and recognised him as the Secretary and directed him to file a list of members of the Management Committee. The order of the Assistant Registrar dated 11.7.2003 was challenged in Writ Petition No. 32799 of 2003. The writ petition was disposed of by an order dated 4.5.2006 with a direction to the Assistant Registrar to hold the elections for the post of Secretary of the Society under his supervision and to follow the procedure in the bye-laws. It was directed that till the elections of the Secretary take place the post of Secretary shall be vested in the District Magistrate, Deoria.

2. In pursuance of the order of this Court the Assistant Registrar undertook the exercise of holding the elections. He invited the petitioner No. 1 Satya Narain Tripathi as well as the respondent No. 4 Mahendra Nath Dubey to produce the original records and members list. An election programme was published in the newspaper Rashtriya Sahara dated 16.6.2006 in which the date of publication of the provisional voter list was fixed as 20.6.2006, objections to which were also to be filed later, on the same day. 22.6.2006 was fixed as the date for disposal of the objections and final voter list was to be published on 23.6.2006. The Assistant Registrar found that the Secretary of the society is to be elected by the Committee of Management of the Society, which thus constitutes the electoral body. He also found that the list of members of the Committee of Management 2001-2002 filed under Section 4 (1) of the Act was the authenticate list in asmuch as that list was not challenged while the subsequent elections in the year 2003 were disputed. He, therefore, decided that the election would be held on the basis of the list of members pertaining to the year 2001-2002. It appears that several sets of objections against the voter list were filed before the Assistant Registrar. One of these objections was filed by the petitioner No. 1 Satya Narain Tripathi. Another objection was filed by the respondent No. 4 Mahendra Nath Dubey. Another objection was filed by Gauri Shanker Mishra petitioner in Writ Petition No. 39368 of 2006. There were 11 members of the Committee of Management in the list of 2001-2002. While deciding the objections of petitioner No. 1 Satya Narain Tripathi and other persons the Assistant Registrar found that two of the members in the list have died. He, therefore, allowed the objections in this respect and published the final electoral list of nine members. The objections of the petitioner No. 1 Satya Narain Tripathi on other points were rejected by the Assistant Registrar. The objections of this petitioner were (i) Mahendra Nath Dubey was not qualified to be a member in view of the fact that under the Bye-law No. 5 only a person who had put in 15 ye