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16. In my view, when the sub-committee was being authorised to adjudicate upon the validity of the disputed proxies and thereafter to declare the result after taking into consideration the votes cast at the poll and further when the decision of the sub-committee was to be regarded as final and binding on all the contesting candidates, it followed by necessary implication that the sub-committee was also authorised to allow the proxies adjudged valid to cast their votes. For otherwise the question of going into the validity of the proxies who had not been allowed to vote at the meeting of June 6, 1977, would not have arisen and it would become totally meaningless. The courts below were, therefore, right in holding that the sub-committee was acting within its powers to call upon the proxies, which were held to be valid by it, to cast their votes.

18. Briefly stated the submission of the learned co'unsel on the merits of the findings of the courts below was that the proxies had to vote only at the poll and the poll could not be held piecemeal. According to the learned counsel, the poll concluded on June 6, 1977, itself, and consequently the proxies could not be permitted to vote after the meeting had concluded on June 6, 1977. Elaborating his argument, learned counsel submitted that the proxies could cast their votes only at a meeting and in person, and not otherwise. The courts below have repelled this contention relying inter alia, on a decision in the case of M. K. Srinivasan v. Watrap S. Subrahmanya Ayyar [1932] 2 Comp Cas 147; AIR 1932 Mad 100. In that case, it has been held that the actual process of holding the poll is not a meeting at all. I am inclined, prima facie, to agree with the view of the courts below. In my view, the poll had not concluded on June 6, 1977, and neither had the meeting. For the purpose of the poll, the original meeting would be deemed to be continuing till the results are announced. In my opinion, learned counsel for the applicant is wrong in assuming that meeting and poll are synonymous terms. Disputed proxies had not been permitted to vote at the meeting of June 6, 1977, and as the sub-committee upon the opinion given by Mr. K. L. Gosain came to the conclusion that the proxies sent, by Mr. Hollander and the principal of the Christian College alone were valid, it became necessary to ask those proxies to cast their votes. Further, as the poll had not concluded on June 6, 1977, it was permissible for the committee to invite the proxies to cast their votes, even after June 6, 1977. It has been held in the case of Queen v. Wimbledon Local Board [1882] 8 QBD 459 (CA) that the taking of a poll is very much different from holding a meeting and that a poll is nothing but a mode of ascertaining the sense of the electorate. It is, therefore, not correct to say that it was not open to the sub-committee to try and obtain the votes of the proxies after June 6, 1977, as, in my view, the poll had not concluded on that date.

19. Learned counsel next contended that legally proxies could cast their votes only in a meeting, and that too in person, and not through postal ballots. For this proposition, learned counsel cited the following passage from Halsbury's Laws of England, IV Edn., para. 496, which runs as follows:

" A person voting as proxy for an elector must do so in person at the elector's polling station except in so far as a proxy is entitled to vote by post."

20. This enunciation is based upon and has been made in the context of the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1949 (of England) and is of no assistance in dealing with the present case which is governed by the specific provisions of the Companies Act. Even in the aforesaid passage, it has been observed that a proxy may in certain cases be permitted to vote by post.

22. The provisions of Section 185 of the Act are wide enough to permit casting of votes by proxies by post. The resolution empowering the sub-committee to declare the result after determining the validity of the disputed proxies necessarily included within it the power to obtain the votes of such proxies even by post. At any rate, there was nothing in the resolution to bar this procedure.

23. Learned counsel for the applicant also quoted a passage from Corpus Juris Secundum, Vol. 29, para 118, at p. 3031, which is as follows :