Societies Registration Act, 1860: s. 6 - Suits by and against societies – Entitlement of a Society to sue and be sued – Held: Society registered under the Societies Registration Act is entitled to sue and be sued, only in terms of its bye-laws – The bye-laws may authorise the President or Secretary or any other office bearer to institute or defend a suit for and on behalf of the society terms of its bye-laws – Under s. 6, every society registered under the Act may sue or be sued in the name of President, Chairman, or Principal Secretary, or trustees, as shall be determined by the rules and regulations of the society and, in default of such determination, in the name of such person as shall be appointed by the governing body for the occasion – Thus, unless the plaintiff in a suit which claims to be a society, demonstrates that it is a registered entity and that the person who signed and verified the pleadings was authorised by the bye-laws to do so, the suit cannot be entertained – Fact that the plaintiff in a suit happens to be a local unit or Sakha unit of a registered society is of no consequence, unless the bye-laws support the institution of such a suit – On facts, the finding that the tribunal held that plaintiff No.1 is a legal entity, entitled to sue and be sued was solely on the ground that plaintiff No.1 was one of the Sakha units affiliated to a registered society, is contrary to law – Waqf tribunal committed illegality, first in not framing an issue about the status of the Mahal Committee-appellant no.1 and then in recording a finding as though the local unit of a registered society which is in enjoyment of affiliated status, was entitled to sue – Such an illegality committed by the tribunal was liable to be corrected by the High Court under its revisional jurisdiction – Moreover, the document is a certificate of registration issued u/s. 36 of the Waqf Act, 1995 – Once it is admitted that it was the first respondent namely the Salafi Trust who got the mosque registered as a waqf u/s. 36 of the Act and once it is admitted by the appellants in their plaint that the mosque was constructed in a vacant plot demised by Salafi Trust, it was not open to them to go against the statutory prescriptions and claim to be the Mutawalli – Travancore-Cochin Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Registration Act, 1955 – Waqf Act, 1995 - ss.36, 83(9) proviso.
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited v. Dilbahar Singh (2014) 9 SCC 78 : [2014] 14 SCR 1379 –
referred to.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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