Holding a challenged society election does not render the challenge infructuous.

O.S. No. 205 of 2022 was instituted to challenge a notice convening a Society general-body meeting on 4 May 2022 and to restrain the meeting and election.

After the meeting and election took place, the plaint was amended to seek declarations that the meeting and election were null and void.

The original plaintiff died, and other members continued the suit.

During trial, S. Vaikunda Rajan, who had already testified as P.W.2, sought impleadment as a plaintiff; the trial court allowed his application, prompting C.R.P.(MD) No. 343 of 2026.

In C.R.P.(MD) No. 468 of 2026, certain defendants challenged the refusal to dismiss the suit as infructuous, arguing that the elected body’s three-year tenure had expired and a further election had been held in 2025.

Whether Vaikunda Rajan, in the circumstances of the case, could be impleaded as a plaintiff in the pending suit despite the objection that he had been removed from Society membership and had applied at a late stage.

Whether the suit had become infructuous because the challenged meeting and election had occurred, the elected body’s tenure had expired, and a subsequent election had been held.

Order I Rule 10(2) CPC permits impleadment where a person is a necessary or proper party to the effective adjudication of the dispute.

Section 151 CPC preserves the court’s inherent power to take account of subsequent events and dispose of litigation that has genuinely become infructuous, provided no provision of the Code prohibits that course; Shipping Corporation of India v. Machado Brothers, (2004) 11 SCC 168, was cited for this principle.

The Court also relied on its earlier order in the same litigation, which treated the challenge to the Society meeting and election as a common cause available to aggrieved members.

Section 55 of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975, was raised in argument concerning defects in Society proceedings, but the Court did not rely on it to determine these revisions.

The authorities cited on infructuous litigation were distinguished on the facts.

On impleadment, the Court considered that Vaikunda Rajan was a Society member when he sought to join the proceedings, had already testified in support of the Society-related challenge, and was not asserting an independent personal cause.

His removal from membership was itself disputed and its validity could be determined at trial.

In light of the earlier ruling that the challenge concerned a common cause of members, the Court found no sufficient basis to disturb the trial court’s decision to implead him.

On infructuousness, the subsequent holding of the meeting and election did not resolve the plaintiffs’ substantive challenge to their validity.

The later election and expiry of the elected body’s tenure therefore did not, by themselves, extinguish the live questions in the amended suit.

The order allowing Vaikunda Rajan’s impleadment was upheld, and the Court declined to dismiss the suit as infructuous.

The trial court was directed to allow the plaintiffs to carry out the amendment and file the amended plaint within 14 days; to complete pleadings and, if necessary, frame additional issues within one month thereafter; and then to proceed day-to-day and dispose of the suit within three months.

The trial court could impose appropriate costs for unnecessary or frivolous applications.