JUDGMENT

H. L. Capoor, J. - This is a plaintiff's appeal against the judgment and decrees of the two courts below, holding the suit not being maintainable by the civil courts.

2. Ishwari Prasad, the plaintiff, filed a suit for permanent injunction, restraining the defendants from illegality and wrongfully intimidating the plaintiff and interfering with his functioning in the office of the President of the Shoe Makers Co-operative Society, Teela Nand Ram, Agra, on the allegations that he was the duly elected President of the said society, that he had been acting as such since the year 1953, that the defendant-respondent No. 1 got the plaintiff served with a notice to hand over charge to him by 31st July, 1963, claiming that he had been elected as the President, that, in fact, no election was ever held on 13th September, 1962, as alleged by the defendant No. 1 nor could it be so held under the rules and regulations of the society, that the plaintiff on 13th February 1963 and 29th May, 1963, made representations to the Registrar, Industrial Co-operative Societies, to arbitrate in the matter, that the Registrar, without giving any opportunity to the plaintiff, rejected the representations made by him, and asked him to hand over charge to the defendant held by 31st July, 1963, and hence the suit.

3. The suit was resisted by defendant No. 1 on the main grounds that no illegality of any kind was committed in his election, that the plaintiff had misappropriated the society funds, that a complaint was accordingly filed against him to the higher authorities, that at a general meeting held on 13th September, 1962, defendant No. 1 was duly elected as the President of the society, and that the suit was not legally maintainable, as the dispute regarding elections could not be challenged in the civil court.

4. Both the courts below, after considering the relevant provisions of law and the circumstances of the case, arrived at the finding that the suit was not within the cognizance of the civil court, as the dispute related to the election of the President and it could be decided by reference to arbitration. They accordingly dismissed the suit on this ground, without entering into the merits of the case.

5. Being aggrieved against the said decisions of the two courts below, the plaintiff has come up in appeal, and the learned counsel, appearing on his behalf, has strenuously urged before me that Rule 115 of the Co-operative Societies Rules could not take away the jurisdiction of the civil court to determine whether any particular act of any authority was without jurisdiction. In support of his contention, he has placed reliance upon a case Sahkari Ganna Samiti Ltd v. Mahendra Pratap Rao, .I.R. 1967 All. 134. It appears that in the said reported case, the plaintiff filed a suit for a declaration that he was a validly elected delegate of a particular society to the Co-operative Cane Development Society and for an injunction to restrain the defendants from electing another delegate. Thus, that case was not in respect of a dispute between two persons with regard to an election, but the question was only with regard to the election of a particular person, that is, the plaintiff of that suit, and, if he wanted a declaration to that effect, the observations made by his Lordship in that case were wholly justified, because a suit for declaration of such a nature could only be filed before the civil court and its jurisdiction could not be taken away by the rule-making body. The facts of the instant case before me are quite distinct from the facts of the said reported case, inasmuch as in the instant case, the dispute has arisen between the plaintiff and the defendant with regard to the election of the President, and in view of the Explanation 3 to Rule 115 of the Co-operative Societies Rules, which provides that the business of the society includes all matters relating to the objects of the society mentioned in the bye-laws as also those relating to the