- (1.) THIS appeal arises out of an order passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court whereby W.P. No. 17642 of 1994, DD: 8 -11 -2000 filed by the appellant challenging an endorsement issued by the Registrar of Societies has been dismissed (K.P. Devaiah v. State of Karnataka). The facts giving rise to the filing of the writ petition and the present appeal may be summarised as under: Mathikere Cambridge Education Society was registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, 1960, way back in August 1979. The Society was established primarily for the purpose of running a school under the name and style of Cambridge English School at Mathikere. A decade later, the members of the Society are said to have passed a resolution on 20 -9 -1990 by which they resolved to dissolve the Society and transfer its assets and liabilities to Mathikere Cambridge Education Trust. This Trust was according to the appellants established under a Trust deed dated 30 -11 -1990 executed by four of the members of the Society including the appellants and respondents 5 and 8 in this appeal. The resolution passed by the Society in September 1990 also noted that the affairs of the Society had been taken over by the Trust acting through respondents 4 and 5. Shortly thereafter a letter informing the Registrar of Societies regarding the dissolution of the Society is said to have been sent to the Registrar and acknowledged by him. According to the appellants, the institution has with effect from 16 -1 -1991 been managed by Mathikere Cambridge Education Trust. This is according to the appellants evidenced by a resolution passed in the meeting of the said Trust held on 16 -1 -1991 a copy whereof as produced as Annexure -A2 to the writ petition. The appellant's further case is that the Trust has been registered with the Income Tax Department who has issued a certificate under Section 12A of the Income Tax Act on 30 -12 -1991. In support of its claim that ever since the transfer of the institution to the Trust, the Trust is in actual management of the same it has produced certain documents including the balance -sheet of the Trust which is signed by the appellants as well as respondents 5 and 8. The school is according to the appellants being run presently in a premises taken on lease by the Trust a copy whereof has also been produced by the appellants as Annexure -G to the writ petition.
(2.) WHILE the Trust was, according to the appellants, managing the institution, the Registrar of Societies has issued an endorsement dated 5 -7 -1993 by which he purports to have declined recognition to the dissolution of the Society and transfer of the school to the Trust. The endorsement inter alia records that there is no provision in the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, 1960, under which a Society could be converted into a Trust. The conversion of the Society as a Trust was therefore in the opinion of the Registrar illegal. Aggrieved by the endorsement aforementioned, the appellants filed W.P. No. 17642 of 1994 in this Court inter alia for a writ of certiorari quashing the endorsement and for a writ of mandamus directing the Registrar of Societies not to receive any communication from respondent 3 -Society or to enter into any correspondence with the said Society. The petitioners also sought a mandamus directing the Registrar to recognise the Trust deed dated 30 -11 -1990 and to declare that the Society was not in existence ever since the passing of resolution dated 20 -9 -1990.
(3.) IN the objections filed on behalf of the State and the Registrar of Co -operative Societies, it was inter alia stated that the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, 1960, did not envisage conversion of a Society into a Trust in the light of the bar contained in Sections 21 and 22 thereof and the decisions rendered by this Court from time to time. It was also stated that the accounts filed by the Secretary of the Society in terms of Section 13 of the Act and the correspondence made in that regard have been treated to be correspondence between the Society on the one hand and the Registrar on the other. The objections prayed for dismissal of the writ petition, as there was no room for grant of any relief to the petitioners.;