madras bar association case writ appeal full order of. WA.No.1354 of 2023 and CMP.No.13244 of 2023 S.S.SUNDAR, J., and K.RAJASEKAR, J., [Order of the Court was made by S.S.SUNDAR, J.,] This appeal is filed against the order dated 22.06.2023 made in WP.No.22460 of 2012 by the learned Single Judge of this Court and CMP.No.13244 of 2023 is filed seeking stay of operation of the said order. / Hence, there shall be an order of interim stay as prayed for. However, it is made clear that we have only expressed our prima facie view and final orders in the Writ Appeal on merits will be passed after hearing the parties in full, uninfluenced by any of the observations made in this order and therefore the first respondent is not prevented from placing his contentions to sustain the order of the learned Single Judge at the time of final hearing. 20.At request of the learned counsels appearing for the respondents, post the matter on 14.07.2023. [S.S.S.R.J] [K.R.S.J] 03.07.2023 Note: Issue Order copy on 04.07.2023. pvs/AP  S.S.SUNDAR, J., and K.RAJASEKAR, J., pvs/AP WA.No.1354 of 2023 and CMP.No.13244 of 2023 03.07.2023

WA.No.1354 of 2023 and CMP.No.13244 of 2023
S.S.SUNDAR, J., and
K.RAJASEKAR, J.,
[Order of the Court was made by S.S.SUNDAR, J.,]
This appeal is filed against the order dated 22.06.2023 made in
WP.No.22460 of 2012 by the learned Single Judge of this Court and CMP.No.13244 of 2023 is filed seeking stay of operation of the said order.
2.The brief facts that are necessary for considering the prayer for an interim order in the Miscellaneous Petition are as follows:
1. The first respondent in this appeal filed a Writ Petition in WP.No.22460 of 2012 for issuance of a Writ of Mandamus directing the first respondent in the Writ Petition, viz., The Registrar General, High Court of Madras to consider and pass appropriate orders on his representation dated 13.07.2012 and take suitable action.
ii). Though the Writ Petitioner has referred to a single representation dated 13.07.2012 in the prayer, this Court finds that there are 2 representations on the said date addressed to the Registrar General, High Court of Madras. In one of the representation, the Writ Petitioner has referred to the incident alleged to have taken place on 06.01.2012 by which his son was humiliated. The allegation is that when the Writ Petitioner’s son was collecting water to drink from the water machine installed inside the Madras Bar Association, a Senior Advocate and a member of the Madras Bar Association snatched the tumbler from his son and prevented him from drinking water. This prompted the Writ Petitioner to give representations to the appellant as well as to the Registry. It is stated in the representation that the inhuman act of the Senior Advocate is intolerable and any civilized Forum would condemn this act and hence, he requested to withdraw his Senior Advocate designation from the roll of designated Senior Advocates. In the second representation, the Writ Petitioner also requested to take suitable action against the said Senior Advocate and the Committee Members and to give suitable instructions to the appellant herein to remove them from the Madras Bar Association for their illegal acts.
3.Though the Writ Petition was filed in 2012, the learned Single
Judge allowed 2 miscellaneous petitions filed by two independent
Advocates, who are respondents 3 and 4 herein, in WMP.Nos.17204 and
17372 of 2023 and impleaded them as respondents 3 and 4 in the said Writ Petition.
4.The grievance of the third respondent is that the application submitted by him seeking admission to the appellant Association as a Member is pending for more than 10 years and the discrimination shown by the Association in admitting Members should be condemned. He prayed for a direction to the appellant to admit him as a Member.
5.The grievance of the fourth respondent is that he was denied even the membership Form for admission, infringing his fundamental right under Article 19(1)(c) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution. He prayed for a direction to the appellant to issue membership with immediate effect.
6.The learned Single Judge after recording the statements of the counsel appearing for the petitioner, averments in the affidavit, counter affidavit and the grievance of respondents 3 and 4, who were impleaded as parties to the Writ Petition, passed final order with the following directions:
“118. The facts, circumstances and the legal principles as discussed in the aforementioned paragraphs, warrant the following directions from the hands of this Court:-
(1) The second respondent / Madras Bar Association is
directed to pay a sum of Rs.5,00,000/- [Rupees Five Lakhs Only] to the petitioner towards compensation for the untoward incident happened in the Madras Bar Association premises on 06.01.2012, since the second respondent is vicariously liable for the conduct of its own members.
(2) The second respondent / Madras Bar Association is
directed to admit the respondents 3 and 4 as members of the Madras Bar Association within a period of one (1) week from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.
(3) The Madras Bar Association / second respondent is
directed to distribute applications for membership to all the interested practising lawyers in the High Court of Madras and admit them as members without discriminating any lawyer on the basis of caste, gender, religion, economic status, personal affiliations with Senior Advocates or dignitaries and political affiliations without reference to the draconian Bye-Laws regarding eligibility criteria to become the member of the Madras Bar Association or by amending the Bye-Laws suitably. In the event of failure on the part of the second respondent, the Madras High Court Administration and the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu are bound to initiate all appropriate actions in the manner known to law.
(4) The Bar Associations functioning in the High Court
premises are directed to obtain prior permission from the first respondent / Registrar General, Madras High Court for conducting / holding celebrations, functions, birthday parties, lunch parties etc., in the interest of safety and security in the High Court Premises.
(5) Shifting of Madras Bar Association / second respondent
from “High Security Zone” to any other place in the High Court premises is within the exclusive domain of the High Court administration. It is for the Registrar General, Madras High Court to initiate appropriate actions by placing all the facts before the Hon’ble The Chief Justice of Madras High Court.”
7.When the appeal was listed before the Court earlier on 27.06.2023, the respondents 1, 3 and 4, who are appearing as party-in-person, requested for time stating that they were served with papers only on the date when the matter was listed. Therefore, this Court after recording their submissions without going into the merits of the appeal granted an order of status quo as on the date of filing of the Writ Petition till 03.07.2023.
8.When the matter appeared today, Mr.G.Masilamani, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellant requested this Court to grant an interim order staying the operation of the order of the learned Single Judge highlighting the following aspects:
(a) i) The Writ Petition itself is not maintainable as the learned Senior Advocate, against whom the Writ Petitioner has made serious allegations referring to the incident on 06.01.2012, was not impleaded. It is also pointed out that alleged incident is seriously disputed by the appellant.
(a) ii) Referring to the representations of the Writ Petitioner, it is pointed out that the request of Writ Petitioner is
only against a Senior Counsel and member of Appellant Association to take action against him and hence the prayer in the Writ Petition has become infructuous as the said learned Senior Counsel died even in the year 2021.
(b) i) The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellant then referred to rule 17 of the Madras High Court Writ Rules, 2021, which relates to posting of the Writ Petitions, and submitted that if a Writ Petition is filed against the High Court, the same shall be posted before the Division Bench as per Rule 17(1) of the Madras High Court Writ Rules. Though specific objections were raised, it is submitted that learned Single Judge rejected the contention of the appellant on the ground that the Writ Petition is pending from 2012 and therefore, the issue cannot be raised at the fag end of final hearing. The learned Senior Counsel also submitted that there is no estoppel against the statue and by virtue of the Specific Rules framed by the High Court, hearing of the case by the learned Single Judge is not proper.
(b) ii)Learned Senior counsel referred to Rule 17(1) of the Madras High Court Writ Rules reads as follows:
“17. Posting of Writ Petitions
(1) The following categories of Writ Petition shall be posted before a Division Bench:(i) Public Interest Litigation.
(ii) Habeas Corpus Petitions.
(iii) Petitions challenging the vires of Acts, Rules or Regulations.
(iv) Petitions relating to Judicial Service and service of court employees including High Court employees.
(v) Petitions against the High Court.
(vi) Petitions arising from the orders of Central Administrative Tribunal, Debts Recovery Tribunal, Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal, National Company Law Tribunal, National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Securities Appellate Tribunal and Proceedings under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Security Interest Enforcement Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
(vii) Any petition against any action taken or order passed by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly or against the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
Provided that a Devision Bench before whom a petition is posted for hearing may at any time refer it for hearing and determination by a Larger Bench having regard to the importance or complexity of the case.”
c)The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellant then submitted that the impleading petitions were filed during the pendency of the Writ Petition and those applications were allowed without even giving an opportunity to the appellant to file its counter.
d)(i)The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellant then submitted that third parties have been impleaded in this Writ Petition to grant reliefs on different cause of action, ignoring the scope of writ petition which is confined to the cause as seen from the representations of the Writ Petitioner.
d)(ii)Referring to the broad principle that scope of litigation cannot be enlarged by impleading third parties, learned Senior Counsel submitted that the directions are totally unwarranted and that the learned Single Judge has actually gone beyond the scope of the Writ Petition and given
directions.
e)The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellant then submitted that the observations of the learned Single Judge by referring to the bye-law of the Society and the comments are against the Principle of Natural Justice, inasmuch as the appellant was not invited to respond on any issue with regard to the bye-law of the appellant and the appellant’s reputation is impaired and put to serious prejudice without an opportunity to appellant who had no occasion to defend.
9.Though learned Senior counsel appearing for appellant and Mr.V.Prakash, learned Senior counsel have made few more submissions on merits, this Court need not elaborate at this stage.
10.The first respondent, who is appearing as party-in-person, at the outset requested for time on the ground that the he is not feeling well on account of recent surgery he had undergone. However, the first respondent referred to the general grievance of the Members of the Bar against the appellant and made several allegations against the appellant Bar Association about its functioning both in the context of pursuing this litigation and outside its scope.
11.The first respondent then submitted that the arguments challenging
the disposal of the Writ Petition by the learned Single Judge, is unsustainable on the ground that the appellant has surrendered to the jurisdiction of the learned Single Judge and therefore the appellant cannot raise the question regarding the disposal of the Writ Petition by the learned Single Judge.
12.The first respondent then submitted that he has raised several issues on the functioning of the Bar Association/appellant and therefore, the matter should be heard at length. The first respondent also submitted that he is prepared to give an undertaking that he will not press for the direction regarding payment of sum of Rs.5,00,000/- to the Writ Petitioner and therefore, no interim order is necessary.
13.The respondents 3 and 4 have made similar representations that they are not pressing the directions of the learned Single Judge for inducting them as members and therefore, there need not be any interim stay. As far as the respondents 3 and 4 are concerned, they are only interested in relation to the directions relevant to them. The prayer in their impleading petition is to enroll them as members of appellant. When they submit that they undertake not to press for the directions concerning them till the disposal of appeal, this Court is of the view that they have no locus to raise objection for granting interim stay. Therefore, we are unable to find any merit in their objections for granting of stay.
14.Considering the submissions of both sides and the serious factual issues raised in the Writ Petition, this Court finds that the learned Single Judge has ignored the specific objections raised by the appellant, denying the incident on 06.01.2012 which is the cause of action for filing the writ.
15.Though the appellant raised a specific plea denying the alleged incident on 06.01.2012, the learned Single Judge proceeded on the basis that the incident dated 06.01.2012 is true and had happened as alleged. Strangely, the first respondent/Writ Petitioner has not even impleaded the
Senior Counsel against whom several allegations were made. The Writ Petition was filed only for the purpose that the Registry should give suitable direction to the Association to take action against the said learned Senior Counsel and to withdraw his designation as Senior Counsel. When serious allegations are made against the Senior Counsel, this Court in unable to convince itself how the Writ Petition without impleading the said Senior Counsel is maintainable. It is settled that this Court when exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 of Constitution of India may not decide contentious issues on facts.
16.It is to be noted that scope of Writ Petition cannot be enlarged by allowing impleading petitions when the impleading petitioners have different cause of action to seek appropriate remedy especially when the writ petition is not filed as Public Interest Litigation.
17.When objections are specifically raised by the appellant, the learned Single Judge ought to have considered the same and it is well established that there is no estoppel against Statute. Even without an objection it is a good ground in this appeal. Whenever Writ Petition against the Registrar General is posted before learned Single Judge by mistake, it is in practice to refer the writ petition to be heard by Division Bench holding portfolio when it is listed before learned Single Judge in view of Rule 17[1] of Madras High Court Writ Rules, 2021.
18.A writ petition can be filed only by the person who has suffered a legal injury. Alleging social injustice done to a stranger even if the stranger is a son, the petitioner may file a Public Interest Litigation and not a writ petition as person aggrieved. The learned Single Judge has disposed of the Writ Petition as a Public Interest Litigation and this Court finds that the directions in paragraph 118 of the order in the Writ Petition, will have serious implications affecting the independence of Bar Associations throughout this State involving serious legal issues.
19.In view of the above, this Court is of the considered view that a prima facie case has been made out to grant an order of interim stay as prayed for. Hence, there shall be an order of interim stay as prayed for. However, it is made clear that we have only expressed our prima facie view and final orders in the Writ Appeal on merits will be passed after hearing the parties in full, uninfluenced by any of the observations made in this order and therefore the first respondent is not prevented from placing his contentions to sustain the order of the learned Single Judge at the time of final hearing.
20.At request of the learned counsels appearing for the respondents, post the matter on 14.07.2023.
[S.S.S.R.J] [K.R.S.J]
03.07.2023 Note: Issue Order copy on 04.07.2023.
pvs/AP 
S.S.SUNDAR, J., and
K.RAJASEKAR, J., pvs/AP
WA.No.1354 of 2023 and CMP.No.13244 of 2023
03.07.2023