1. ' WAJIHUDDIN AHMED, C.J.---This petition has a background. Two earlier petitions have preceded this. The first of these was Constitutional Petition No,D-2397 of 1994, which was directed against a notice addressed to the then management of Jafar-e-Tayyar Cooperative Housing Society Limited under section 6(1) of the Sindh Cooperative Housing Authority Ordinance, 1982, and appointment of an enquiry officer thereunder. The second, Constitutional Petition No,1314 of 1995, was also filed by the same management when, vide order, dated 1-6-1995, the management of the Society was taken over and an Administrator appointed in place thereof. Both such petitions were disposed of on the basis of a compromise application, dated 12-9-1996, which was allowed per order of the same date. In consequence, the Official Assignee, having been appointed Commissioner, elections for the Managing Committee of the Society were held by him on 3-1-1997. The order, dated 12-9- 1996 was sought to be clarified by the petitioners in Constitutional Petition No,D-2397 of 1994 on the premise that the Official Assignee was not holding elections in accordance byelaw 46 of the Society in question. The application was dismissed on 1-1-1997 on the ground that once the petition stood disposed of no further directions remained to be given by the Court. This led to the filing of the present petition, which was instituted on 4-3-1997.
2. ' The petitioners claim to be members of respondent No,7-Jafar-e-Tayyar Cooperative Housing Society Limited. They say that in terms of bye-law 46(a) elections only for one-third of the retiring members of the committee were to be held but the Official Assignee, instead, went on to get the entire committee elected on 3-1-1997, when he proceeded to conduct the elections. It is added that the Official Assignee also entertained the nomination papers of respondents Nos.4 to 6, when such respondents were not borne on the list of members upon which, through the consent order, the Official Assignee was required to act. Bye-law 46(a), which is usually the standard bye-law for most Cooperative Societies, provided as under:--- "46.(a) At the First Annual General Meeting of the Society and at each subsequent Annual General Meeting of the Society the President and one-third of the numbers of the Committeemen shall retire; the Committee-men to retire in each year being those who have been longest in office since the appointment or last election but between persons who became Committeemen on the same day those to retire shall (unless they otherwise agree among themselves) be determined by ballot and in the event of the number of Committeemen not being a multiple of three the number of Committeemen to retire at any General Meeting shall be determined at the Meeting at which the Committeemen are elected."
3. Both the foregoing contentions are untenable. When a society is superseded under section 6 of the Sindh Cooperative Housing Authority Ordinance, 1982 or otherwise and, without being restored, elections to the Managing Committee of such Society are held, there can hardly be any question of such elections being limited to the purportedly retiring members of the Committee. Significantly, in this case both the compromise application and the consent order thereon passed on 12-9-1996 remain silent as to whether the elections projected to be held would be confined to the retiring members of the Committee alone, much as no specific or other restoration of the management was visualized.
4. ' There is yet another aspect pertaining to the first leg of the above argument. Bye-law 46(a) is calculated to provide continuity in the management of a Cooperative Society and is to be beneficially construed. Where, therefore, serious allegations subsist against such a management and, as a consequence thereof, the same stands, superseded, there can be hardly any warrant for allowing continuity of the superseded committee unless restoration is expressly ordered.
5. ' Even generally, where the management is not superseded and for some reason, or even for no reason at all, the year to year retirements of one-third of the members of the Managing Committee are not matched by the election of substitutes, the rule in 46(a) should yet operate. In other words, those postulated to retire would retire on their turn, nonetheless. As and when the elections are held all vacancies, thus, occurring would come up to be filled any way. This arises for the simple reason that the one-third of the Committeemen retiring each year is not conditional upon the filling up of the vacancies of the retirees and retirement should take place irrespective of the vacancies being filled. Upon this construction, irrespective of what transpired in-between, the last retirements and replacement of the said one-third Committeemen having taken place in the context of Jafar-e-Tayyar Cooperative Housing Society Limited in the year 1995, during the two ensuing years at least two-third of the membership on the committee stood automatically retired and, as said above, irrespective of replacement. What is more, we are already in the year 1998 and even if all that has intervened is discarded, the committee, as it subsisted in 1995, would no longer survive at this time and on this day. No relief, therefore, in the context can be administered.
6. ' As regards the peripheral objection, pertaining to the Official Assignee entertaining nomination papers from respondents Nos.4- to 6, who are stated to have been out of the list of members on which the Official Assignee was to act, that was a question which ought to have been raised as an election dispute and the jurisdiction of this Court contextually cannot be invoked. For such reasons, we find no merit in this petition and dismiss it.