IMPORTANT POINT
The court clarified that society bylaws do not restrict the timing of membership applications or require personal bank draft preparation.

JUDGMENT :

Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J.

Petitioner no. 2 claims to be the Vice President of a registered society known as ‘Gurunanak Siksha Samiti’, which manages three educational institutions in District Udham Singh Nagar, while petitioner no. 1 claims to be the member of General Body of the said society. Petitioners have challenged the order dated 12.7.2024, passed by the Deputy Registrar, Firms, Societies and Chits, Udham Singh Nagar, whereby he has upheld the decision of the Managing Committee of the said society, taken in the meeting held on 13.5.2022, inducting respondent no. 2 to 31 as member of the society.

2. Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners submits that the order passed by the Deputy Registrar is unsustainable relevant provisions of the bylaws of the society were not considered. He further submits that the Committee of Management held a meeting on 6.5.2022, in which it was decided that next meeting for considering the applications for becoming member shall be held on 13.5.2022; thus any application for membership submitted after 6.5.2022 could not have been considered by the Committee of Management in the next meeting held on 13.5.2022. However, such applications were not only considered but the persons making such application were also inducted as Member. He submits that this issue was highlighted by petitioners before the Deputy Registrar, however, the Deputy Registrar has completely overlooked the said aspect, therefore, impugned order is unsustainable.

3. Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners further contended that as per the bylaws, every person desirous of becoming member of the society has to tender membership fee through bank draft, which has to be enclosed with the application. He submits that the bank draft has to be prepared in the name of the person, who is making application, however, in the present case, bank draft submitted by some of the applicants were not issued in their name, which indicates that such applicants had not gone to the bank for preparing the bank draft and someone else prepared the bank drafts on their behalf.

4. Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners further submitted that some of the private respondents do not profess Sikh religion, which is necessary, as per the bylaws, to become member of the society. However, Deputy Registrar has not considered this aspect of the matter and upheld their membership.

5. Per contra, learned Counsel for the respondents submit that there is no restriction on the power of Committee of Management to entertain the application for membership, submitted after the meeting in which the agenda for considering fresh applications for membership is fixed. They further submit that there is no minimum statutory period prescribed in the bylaws between date of submission of application and the date when the decision to induct new members has to be taken by the Committee of Management.

6. Learned Counsel for the respondents further contend that there is no provision in the bylaws which requires that the applicant has to go to the bank for getting the bank draft prepared and the bank draft prepared through a servant/agent shall be discarded. It is further contended that bank draft is an instrument that carries a guarantee of funds from the bank/financial institution and unlike a cheque, bank draft has a guarantee that it will not bounce due to insufficiency of funds. Thus they submit that purpose of bank draft is to collect fee from the applicants, which is achieved once the amount is credited into the account of society.

7. As regards the third issue that some private respondents do not profess Sikh religion, learned Counsel for the respondents submit that there is no pleading to this effect in the writ petition, therefore, learned Counsel for the petitioners cannot raise an issue which is not pleaded. They, however, submit that this aspect has been dealt with by the Deputy Registrar in his order dated 12.7.2024. Perusal of the impugned order reveals that after