Tamil sangam contributed more to development of law than Tamil: HC

The Hindu 30 June 2014

The Madurai Tamil Sangam, a society registered in 1908 under the Societies Registration Act, has contributed more to development of law than literature by getting mired in litigations, the Madras High Court Bench here has observed.

A Division Bench, comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice V.M. Velumani, made the observation while allowing a writ appeal filed by N. Kumaran Sethupathy, president of the sangam, against the society represented by its secretary R. Alagumalai.

“As in the case of every other society, this Madurai Tamil Sangam has also been involved in a series of litigations contributing both to the development of law and to the development of literature, perhaps more to the development of law than to the development of literature,” the judges said.

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Mr. Justice Ramasubramanian said the present appeal was against an order obtained by the secretary from a single judge restraining the appellant from convening an extraordinary general body meeting.

The judge said that it was a well settled law that no writ petition could be filed against a society. Nevertheless, the secretary of the sangam had worded his plea in such a way that it appeared to have sought a direction to the Inspector General of Registration but ultimately ended up to be a direction against the sangam’s president.

Stating that an extraordinary general meeting could not be convened at the instance of any individual but only at the request of the executive committee or a group of members, the judge said: “It is very strange that that the society represented by its secretary filed a writ against the president for a mandamus not to convene the meeting.”