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Judgment
Seetharam Reddy, J.—The question that arises in this case and which, in our judgment, has to be answered in the affirmative is : Whether more than two special meetings could be convened within a period of sixty days as per the provisions of Section 17 (1) of the A.P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, and in view of the language of Rule 5 of the Rules framed under the said section for electing the Chairman of the Board of Trustees constituted u/s 15 of the said Act?
The facts of the case, in brief, are: The appellant and the 3rd respondent herein, along with five other persons, were appointed as con-hereditary trustees of Sri Ujjaini Mahankali Temple, Secunderabad, by the Deputy Commissioner, Endowments, Hyderabad, on 16-8-1977. The Deputy Commissioner, by another proceeding of the same date, called upon the members of the board of trustees to assemble for a special meeting to be held on 26-8-1977 for electing a Chairman. Only four members attended the meeting; and since according to the Rules, the quorum is five, the meeting was adjourned after administering the out of office to the four members. Another meeting of the Board was convened on 9-9-1977 for the same purpose. The said meeting also was adjourned because the three members, who did not attend previously, again failed to attend the second meeting Sometime thereafter, three members, including the appellant, sent explanations for their absence at the said two meetings. The final result of any action or inaction over the said explanations by the authority concerned, is not clear from the material on record. Be that as it may, on 17-9-1977, the Assistant Commissioner administered the oath to the said three members. By his proceedings dated 7-12-1977, the Deputy Commissioner nominated the appellant as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees u/s 17 (1) of the A.P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act (Here in after referred to as ''the Act''), on the ground that no Chairman was elected within 60 days. As against that, a revision preferred by the aggrieved members to the Government was allowed by setting aside the order of the Deputy Commissioner. The said revisional order was impugned in W.P. No. 4436 of 1979 by invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, and the same has been dismissed. Hence this Writ Appeal. 2. The order under appeal is challenged on two grounds: firstly the learned single judge, having held that the reasons adopted by the government for setting aside the nomination of the Chairman by the Deputy Commissioner, are not properly founded, yet justified the order, which is erroneous; and secondly, the learned judge wrongly held, while construing the provisions of Section 17 (1) read with, in particular. Rule 5 of the Rules framed u/s 17, that more than two special meetings could be convened for electing the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
Before adverting to the analysis of the arguments, the necessary relevant provisions of the statute and the rules may be noticed. Section 16 empowers certain authorities to constitute a Board of Trustees. In this case the board of trustees comprising seven members was constituted by the Deputy Commissioner. So the relevant provision u/s 15.
Section 15 is as under:
(1) In respect of a charitable or religious institution or endowment included in the list published under clause (a) of section 6-------.
(a) xx xx xx
(b) Whose annual income does not exceed rupees two lakhs, the Commissioner may, in the case where there is a hereditary trustee, and shall, in any other case, constitute a Board of Trustees consisting of not less than five and not more than nine persons appointed by him.
Section 16 deals with the administration of oath of office to the trustee. It reads :
(1) xx xx xx
(2) Before a trustee enters upon his office, the Commissioner or any other person authorised by him in this behalf, shall administer to the trustee the oath of office and secrecy according to the forms prescribed for the purpose.
More important and pertinent is Section 17 which reads:--
(1) In the case of a charitable or religious institution or endowment which has no hereditary trustee or trustees and for which a Board of Trustees is constituted u/s 15, the members of the Board of Trustees shall, within such period not exceeding sixty days and in such manner as may be prescribed, elect from among themselves, a Chairman; and if no chairman is elected within the prescribed period; the Government in the case of a Board of Trustees constituted under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of Section 15, and the commissioner in the case of any other Board of Trustees, shall nominate one of the members as Chairman.
(2) x x x
(3) (2) A Chairman elected or nominated under sub-section (1) or elected under clause (c) of sub-section (2) shall hold office as long as he continues to be a member of this Board of Trustees.
(b) A Chairman nominated under clause (b) of sub-section (2) shall hold office for a term of three years from the date of nomination.
Section 83 confers revisory jurisdiction on the Government. It reads:
(1) The Government may, either suo motu or on an application, call for and examine the record of the Commissioner or any Deputy Commissioner or any Assistant Commissioner or any other officer subordinate to them, or of any Executive, Officer or any trustee of a charitable or religious institution or endowment, other than a main or specific endowment attached to a math, in respect of any administrative or quasi-judicial decision taken or order passed under this Act, but not being a proceeding (sic) respect of which a suit or an appeal or application, or a reference to a court is provided by this Act, to satisfy themselves to the correctness, legality or propriety of such decision or order taken or passed and if, in any case, it appears to the Government that such decision or order should be modified, annuled, reversed or remitted for reconsideration, they may pass orders accordingly;
Provided that the Government shall not pass any order prejudicial to any party unless he has had an opportunity of making his representation.
Rules 1 to 5 framed u/s 17 (1) of the Act read,
The Chairman of the Board of trustees shall be elected at a special meeting convened for the purpose within a period of sixty days from the date of the constitution of the Board of Trustees and the election shall be by a secret ballot.
The Special meeting shall be convened by the Commissioner or the Assistant Commissioner, as the case may be or any officer authorised by him in this behalf in respect of a charitable or religious institution or endowment included in the list published under clauses (a) or (c) of section 6 for which a Board of Trustee is appointed in accordance with the provisions of Subsection (1), (2) or (3) of Section 15 and presided over by him. He shall not, however, vote. In the event of there being an equality of votes, a second vote shall be taken. In the event of the second voting also resulting in an equality of votes, the presiding Officer shall cast lots and the person whose name is first drawn shall be declared to have been elected,
The quorum for the special meeting shall be:--
(a) x x x
(b) five, in the case of a Board of Trustees consisting six or seven persons.
(4) The special meeting referred to in rule 1 shall be convened in the premises of the institution or endowment concerned or at such other place as may be fixed by the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioner of the Assistant Commissioner, as the case may be Before convening the special meeting the commissioner or the Assistant Commissioner as the case may be shall issue notices by registered post with acknowledgment due or by service through a local messenger, specifying date and time and the place of such meeting, the interval between the date of despatch of the notice and the date of the meeting being not less than ten days.
Where the special meeting could not be convened either for want of quorum or for any other reason, the Commissioner, or Deputy Commissioner or the Assistant Commissioner, as the case may be, or any Officer specially authorised in this behalf shall convene a meeting in accordance with rules 1 to 4 for a second time.
What becomes apparent from the cumulative effect of the foregoing statutory provisions is that the Chairman must emerge out of election and nomination is an exception and that to under extraordinary circumstances. The Chairman, no doubt must be elected within a period not exceeding sixty days from the date of the constitution of the Board under the combined reading of section 17 (1) and Rule 1; in default, the nomination gains the upper hand.
The arguments of the learned counsel for the appellant, in the main, are (1) Not more than two meetings could be convened within a period of sixty days from the date of constitution of the Board of Trustees for electing the Chairman; and if such two meetings could not be held for want of quorum, no further meetings could be convened for the said purpose and then it shall be competent for the Deputy Commissioner to nominate the Chairman. (2) The two fold reasoning given by the government in its order under revisory jurisdiction is not justified for interfering with the order of the Deputy Commissioner nominating the Chairman. (31 The judgment under appeal, having held that the said reasoning adoplted by the Government in its revisional order will not hold good, yet upheld the validity of that order.
The contention that a Chairman will have to be elected within sixty days from the date of the constitution of the Board of Trustees, is well founded. The counter averment that the election of Chairman will be within sixty days from the date of administration of oath of office to the members of the Board, based on the decison in K. Srirangareddy vs. Commissioner of Endowments 1978 A.P. H. N. 363 wherein it is held,
The term of the trustee has to be reckoned only from the date when the oath Is administered to a trustee but not when he is appointed. Before a trustee enters his office, the Commissioner or any other person authorised by him, shall administer to the trustee the oath of office and secrecy. Therefore, if a trustee does not take the oath he cannot enter upon his office.
is, in our judgment, opposed both in form and substance to the language employed in Section 17 (1) and Rule 1 of the Rules framed under that section. In fact, Rule 1, as quoted earlier, is clear in language and content and does not give scope for any conclusion to the contra.
Coming to the crucial and most vital question as to whether it would be competent for the Deputy Commissioner in this case to convene a third or fourth meeting for the purpose of electing the Chairman after having failed to hold two meetings earlier because of want of quorum within the meaning of Rule 5, there is no explicit provision, either in Rule 5 or in any succeding Rule, conferring power on the Deputy Commissioner to convene any special meeting thereafter; it is equally evident there is no provision placing an embargo on the concerned authority to convene a special meeting under the aforesaid circumstances, either. Bearing in mind our earlier observation that the Chairman has to be brought into being by election and nomination is an exception and to give meaningful effect to the intention of the Legislature particularly in the conspicuous absence of a fester being placed on the powers of the concerned authority to convene third or fourth meeting, it must in our judgment be held that it would be competent for the concerned authority to convence third or fourth meeting, as the case may be, by duly observing the procedure (rule 4 enjoins upon giving ten days clear notice) within the stipulated period of sixty days from the dare of the constitution of the Board. To hold otherwise would be scuttling the democratic process of ''election''; and that, in our judgment, is impliedly forbidden in the language used in both Section 17 is well as the rules framed thereunder. This finds support in the language of section 13 of the A.P. General Clauses Act, which reads.
Where an Act confers a power or imposes a duty, then the power may be exercised and the duly shall be performed from time to time as occasion requires.
and also from T. Venkateswara Rao vs. State AIR 1958 AP 458 wherein a Division Bench of this court, while dealing with the powers of the Government to divide the municipality into wards, held:
Section 43 (Madras District Municipalities Act) admittedly confers a power on the Government to divide the Municipality into wards, to determine the wards in which the seats shall be set apart and declare for whom such seats are reserved. This power though exercised once in May 1956, was not exhausted. In view of the supervening circumstances, viz., the supersession of the Council, the postponement of the elections and the exigencies of the changed situation, the Government through a modification of the previous notification was necessary, and on that basis exercised the power conferred on them under S.43, once again. S. 13 of the Madras General Clauses Act clearly confers such a power on the Government.
The ruling relied on by the learned counsel in W.A. No. 138 of 1979 dated 27-7-1979 wherein while dealing with the question whether the date once fixed for election could be postponed or not, it was held that, "there is no provision under the rules which relate to conduct of elections enabling the Election Officer to postpone the date of the general body meeting after it has been once fixed under Rule 22 (2) (a) of the Rules framed under the A.P. Co-operative Societies Act'', is indisputable; whereas the proposition in the present case is quite distinct and dissimilar and, therefore the ruling is of little or no help. Hence, the rule, read with the section realistically and in the pragmatic light of the language of the Legislature, makes the contention of the Counsel for the appellant incredible.
In view of our above conclusion, we need not address ourselves to the two queries raised by the learned counsel for the respondent, viz., (1) Whether the two special meetings conducted but the Deputy Commissioner could be reckoned as properly held meetings because of the want of quorum on both the occasions within the meaning of certain observations made in "The Law and Practice of Meetings" by A. Harding Bonton, Sixth Edition, at page 44 and 45; and (2) whether writs could be issued under Article 226 of the Constitution of India against the subordinate Tribunals or bodies unless it is shown that there is an apparent error on the fact of the record or the order if one without any jurisdiction or in violation of the principles of natural justice and it has resulted in manifest injustice See Veerappa vs. Raman & Raman Ltd AIR 1951 SC 192 and A.M. Allison Vs. B.L. Sen,
It is true that the two-fold reasoning adopted by the Government In the order passed under revisory jurisdiction, viz., (1) that the special meeting can be called only after all the trustees have taken the oath of office and (2) that when the three trustees failed to attend the two special meetings inspite of due service of notice, action ought to have been initiated against them u/s 26 by the Deputy Commissioner and, instead of doing that, the Deputy Commissioner nominated one of them as the Chairman; is not in accord with the statutory provision in the case of the first reasoning, and regarding the later, we agree with the observation made by our learned brother Jeevan Reddy J., in the judgment appealed against that even if action were to be taken against the three members, it would still not have made any difference so far as the main issue is concerned, because the Chairman had in any case to be nominated by the appropriate authority in case sixty days elapsed from the date of the constitution of the Board without a Chairman having been elected by the members. But, even assuming that the reasons given by the order are wrong if the conclusion arrived at is correct, then the order cannot be held to be bad. It is now well settled that if a decision can be traceable to good reason, merely because of wrong reasoning being adopted, the same cannot be nullified as a bad decision. Hence, we are of the view that the stand taken by the learned Counsel for the appellant on merits with regard to the Government decision, cannot stand scrutiny.
Consequently, the Judgment under appeal has quite justifiably upheld the validity of the order passed by the Government u/s 83 of the Act which is quite comprehensive in its ambit, as the Government is empowered to scrutinise the propriety, regularity and correctness of the order of revision.
To conclude, (1) it is competent and permissible for the authority concerned to convene if necessary more than two special meetings, by observing due procedure, within a period of sixty days from the date of the constitution of the Board of Trustees for electing a Chairman within the meaning of Section 17 (1) read with Rules 1 to 5 of the Rules framed under the said section; and (2) the Chairman will have to be elected within 60 days from the date of the constitution of the Board of Trustees and not from the date of the administration of oath of office to the members of the Board. We, therefore, associate ourselves with the adjudication appealed against and dismiss the appeal. No costs. No leave.