High Court of Judicature at Bombay Bench at Aurangabad Hears Writ Petitions Challenging Orders of Assistant Charity Commissioner under Maharashtra Public Trusts Act — Challenge to Provisional Acceptance of Change Report and Rejection of Objections. The court examined whether the Assistant Charity Commissioner correctly invoked Section 22(2) of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, in a dispute over admission of new members to a trust.

Case Note & Summary

The High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Bench at Aurangabad, heard two writ petitions along with civil applications challenging orders passed by the Assistant Charity Commissioner, Parbhani, under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950. The litigation arose out of a long-standing dispute between rival groups seeking control over Sanjivani Education Society, a trust registered under the Act. The dispute primarily concerned the admission of new members to the trust. The respondent group sought to admit four new trustees, while the petitioners' group claimed to have effected admission of 157 new members. Several change reports were filed by both groups before the Assistant Charity Commissioner reporting their respective changes in the management of the trust. Six such change reports were heard and decided by a common judgment and order dated 29.04.2017 by the Assistant Charity Commissioner. Subsequently, by an order dated 11.01.2021, the Assistant Charity Commissioner provisionally accepted a change reported by the rival group of respondents under sub-section (2) of Section 22 of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950. The petitioners in Writ Petition No.3788 of 2021 filed objections to that order, but the Assistant Charity Commissioner rejected those objections by order dated 28.01.2021. Aggrieved by these orders, the petitioners approached the High Court by way of the present writ petitions, seeking to challenge the provisional acceptance of the change report and the rejection of their objections. The legal issues before the court concerned the validity and propriety of the Assistant Charity Commissioner's exercise of power under Section 22(2) of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, in provisionally accepting the change report, and whether the rejection of the petitioners' objections was justified. The court observed that the controversy was narrow and did not require a detailed narration of the chequered history of disputes between the rival groups. The factual background indicated that the main bone of contention was the admission of new members to the trust, with competing claims of entitlement to manage and control the trust. At the hearing, the High Court issued Rule and made it returnable forthwith. With the consent of the parties, the matters were called out for final hearing. The court heard the arguments of the learned senior advocates and counsel for the respective parties, including the Assistant Government Pleader representing the State. The judgment was reserved on 28-11-2022 and pronounced on 02-12-2022. The court's analysis focused on the orders passed by the Assistant Charity Commissioner in the context of the ongoing dispute over trust management. The petitioners contended that the provisional acceptance of the rival group's change report was erroneous and that their objections were wrongly rejected. However, the provided text of the judgment does not include the detailed submissions of the parties or the final reasoning and operative directions of the court. It records only the procedural steps and the identification of the narrow controversy. In the absence of the final decision in the provided text, the outcome of the writ petitions cannot be stated. The court's final holding, if any, regarding the validity of the orders dated 11.01.2021 and 28.01.2021, and any directions given to the Assistant Charity Commissioner, are not available in the excerpt. The case remains significant for questions concerning the scope of provisional acceptance of change reports under Section 22(2) of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, and the procedural rights of rival groups in trust management disputes.

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