Twin writ applications concerning the contested trusteeship of the All India UCO Bank Officers’ Federation (AIUCBOF) Welfare & Benevolent Trust and the operation of its UCO Bank account were disposed of on 16 April 2024 (Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.): W.P.A 7696 of 2024 by the removed Chairman, Soumendra Roy Choudhury, and companion W.P.A 2304 of 2024 (with IA No. CAN 1 of 2024) by the reconstituted trust itself, which also stood as respondent nos. 4–7 in the first. Background: an interim order of 29 February 2024 in W.P.A 2304 of 2024 had permitted its writ petitioner to operate the account pendente lite. The ousted Chairman contended that the settlor-Federation's working committee had, by special resolution, reconstituted the whole Board de hors the trust deed, bypassing Clause 7(ii)'s removal procedure (three-fourths majority of Life trustees and simple majority of the balance trustees, upon show-cause notice), and that the Bank's recording of the changed trustees flouted Section 45(Z)(B) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (no notice of a claim by any person other than the named depositor to be receivable by, or binding on, the banking company); the rival side urged that the Federation and the trust's membership were virtually one, that no formal challenge to the resolution had yet been preferred, and that Bank records already showed the reconstituted trustees as account holders. On the deed itself the court found a strong prima facie case that the removal/reconstitution was tainted — the entire trust property lay vested in the trust, divesting the settlor, and Clause 7(ii) had not been followed — and that the removal 'might be, prima facie, contrary to law'; yet it decided (i) the writ court is not the appropriate forum for challenging a trustee's removal or for a trust's operation and functioning, the civil court being the appropriate forum; (ii) a bank neither does nor can adjudicate the parties' civil rights, that power vesting in the civil court, whence the Bank is dutybound to honour the requests of the incumbents recorded as account holders and permit them to operate; and (iii) even if the trustees' rights be in doubt, that doubt pertains to civil adjudication. Accordingly both petitions and CAN 1 of 2024 were disposed of with liberty to the W.P.A 7696 petitioner to institute a civil suit before the appropriate civil court — including for interim orders on the account — the merits being expressly untouched, the observations declared non-binding, and, pending civil-court orders, the reconstituted trustees entitled to run the account under a purely ad hoc arrangement construed as no adjudication even prima facie. No costs ordered.
