RAVI SABERWAL Vs. SATURDAY CLUB LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Going by the names of the subscribers to the memorandum of association of the first Defendant club, this Court may have some excuse in taking interest in matters pertaining to it; yet that can be no reason to give a go-by to the principle that civil courts should leave the management of a company to its members and office-bearers, more so if it is a social club. Five barristers and two solicitors got together in 1909 to set up the Saturday Club and had their agreement witnessed by two other barristers and another solicitor.

(2.) The suit is by the president and two other members of the general committee of the club challenging their temporary suspension from the club. The relief's claimed in the suit also call upon the court to ratify certain decisions relating to the club's affairs taken at the instance of the Plaintiffs and in which they betray considerable personal interest. At the interlocutory stage, however, the argument has been confined to the decision of the club to suspend the Plaintiffs' rights and privileges as members of the club for a period of three months.

(3.) As matters of such kind are now given to degenerating into free-fights of "us" v. "them" without so much as a thought spared for the image or reputation of the club, so has it been in this case. The Plaintiffs complain of a coup within the general committee that resulted in elected office-bearers, including the president, no less, being shown the door and kept out of office for almost the remainder of their tenure. The Defendant committee members cite the conduct of the three in entering into dubious deals with third parties and insinuate that the offices of love were unabashedly abused for personal aggrandisement which warranted the extraordinary measures being taken that have been impugned in the present proceedings. The Defendants say that they have played by the book and suggest that even if some minor transgression is noticed in the procedure, the court should allow the matters to be resolved within the domestic forum and not venture to restore the powers of wrong-doers for the club failing to cross the t's and dot the i's with the finesse of a well-oiled corporate entity. The contesting committee members seek continually to draw attention to the gravity of the charges that they say were brought and established against the recalcitrant Plaintiffs and exhort that the court should rather see the substance than the form.