The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to stay the expulsion of Union Minister of State for Minority and Corporate Affairs, Salman Khurshid, from the Delhi Public School Society saying that “no case is made out for grant of injunction and prima facie there is no infirmity in the impugned notice dated September 1, 2008” by which he was expelled from the Society.
However, Justice Manmohan Singh gave Mr. Khurshid an opportunity to seek a hearing from the Society within a period of two weeks if he so desired.
The Court said the Society shall dispose of the representation or complete the hearing if sought by the plaintiff within two weeks thereafter. It also stayed the operation of its order for a period of four weeks.
Mr. Khurshid had sought the injunction against his expulsion on the grounds that the decision to expel him was taken by an improperly constituted working committee of the Society and he was not heard out before taking the decision to expel him.
He had further submitted that the decision of the Society was mala fide because he had demanded democratisation of the organisation and spoken up against its mal-administration and commercialisation.
However, the Court dismissed his plea.
“The circumstances of the present case reveal that the plaintiff has not appeared to have raised any representation/objection before the Society for being condemned unheard, in fact he has time and again reiterated that he would not appear before a ‘kangaroo court’. ”
So far as the charge of mala fide is concerned, Justice Singh said: “At the prima facie stage, I find that it is difficult to comment upon the correctness or otherwise of instances which are essentially management problems and the same can be commented upon fairly only after trial.
The Court posted the matter for January 10 next year for framing of issues.
