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Md. Firoz Ahmad Khalid v. The State of Manipur

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 535Decided 22 Apr 2025
Civil Appeal Nos. 3797 & 3798 of 2025 (arising out of SLP (C) Nos. 2138 of 2024 and 8642 of 2024)
Justice M.M. Sundresh · Justice Rajesh Bindal

Background

The appellant was elected as a Muslim Member of the Bar Council of Manipur in December 2022 and was subsequently appointed as a Member of the Manipur Waqf Board in place of Respondent No. 3, who had lost his Bar Council membership. Respondent No. 3 challenged this appointment, arguing that nothing in the Wakf Act, 1995 said a Waqf Board Member from the Bar Council category must vacate office merely because he ceased to be a Bar Council member. A Single Judge of the Manipur High Court rejected that argument, but a Division Bench reversed and held Respondent No. 3 was entitled to continue on the Board despite no longer being a Bar Council member.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that "Explanation II" to Section 14(1)(b) of the 1995 Act, which explicitly says a Member of Parliament or state legislator who loses that seat also loses Board membership, must, by necessary implication, apply equally to a Bar Council member losing his Bar Council seat, even though the Explanation does not name that category expressly. The Court reasoned that reading the provision as a whole (including its provisos), and applying constitutional equality principles, showed no rational basis to treat Bar Council members differently from legislators for this purpose; the maxim "expressio unius est exclusio alterius" (express mention of one thing excludes others) did not apply here since it would produce an unreasonable, unintended result. The Court declared a contrary 2016 Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) ruling on this point "not good law," set aside the Division Bench's judgment, and restored the Single Judge's order upholding the appellant's appointment.

Lesson Learnt

A person's membership of a public body that depends on holding a particular qualifying office (like Bar Council membership) automatically ends when that underlying qualification ends, even if the statute's express "vacation of office" clause does not spell out every category by name, courts will read the law's overall purpose to avoid an arbitrary or unequal result.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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