CHANNABASAPPA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE petitioners had been nominated to the committee of various co-operative societies arrayed as respondents in the respective writ petitions, the state government one of the respondents, having nominated them in exercise of its power under Section 29 (1) of the Karnataka Co-Operative Societies Act. 1959 ('act' for short ). In all these proceedings, the petitioners have invariably been nominated by various orders passed in first week of October 1999, the order in respect of the petitioners specifying that he is appointed for a period of five years or until the term of the committee expires, whichever is earlier. All these nominations however came to be annulled by the state government passing orders to that effect in the last week of October 1999, purportedly in exercise of its power under Section 29 (1) of the act read with section21 of the Karnataka General Clauses Act, 1899 ('general clauses act' for short ). What is of significance is that, the nominations had been made in the first week of october 1999, by the out-going government of one political party, while cancellation was done in the last week of October by the government of another political parry which had just then come into power after the general elections. It is these orders of cancellation that were passed in the last week of October 1999. That are impugned in these writ petitions.

(2.) THE petitioner urge that the order of cancellation of nomination is illegal and without any authority of law, that it is actuated by mala fides, the only view being to cancel the nominations done by the previous government as political vendetta that the nominated members of the committee had acquired right to hold office as members of the committee of the concerned society for the period specified with no power being there for the state government to take away that right, that the act of nullifying the nominations has been accomplished in violation of the principles of natural justice, inasmuch as, the same is done without affording opportunity of being heard to the petitioners, that the state government is wrong in invoking the Provisions of the General Clauses Act, that the petitioners could not have been removed from the membership of the committee without recourse to Section 29-c of the act. That once nomination was made under Section 29 of the Act, the process of nomination stood exhausted and that the government had no power under the said provision to cancel the nominations, and that the impugned orders as arbitrary and capricious.

(3.) THE state government, in the common statement of objections, contended that it is empowered to nominate three persons on the committee of any assisted society under Section 29 of the Act, that it is empowered to nominate whomsoever it wants to safeguard its interest in the share capital that it has invested in the societies, that the persons so nominated are there at the pleasure of the government irrespective of term and duration mentioned in the order nominating the said persons, and that it is not necessary for the government to assign any reason either while making nominations or while revocation of such nomination. The state government has contended that, whenever and wherever the government felt it necessary to nominate any person, the earlier nominations can be cancelled and new persons nominated and that it was empowered to add, amend, vary or rescind the notification under Section 21 of the General Clauses Act. In the rejoinder, the petitioners pointed the out that the doctrine of pressure that the state government had pleaded in its statement of objections no doubt had been there in Section 29 of the act as it stood prior to the Amendment Act 25 of 1998,but that after the said amendment, the pleasure-doctrine was no longer available, and that the person nominated under Section 29 shall have that term as specified in the order of nomination. It was also pointed that Section 21 of the General Clauses Act cannot be invoked to rescind the order of nomination since the very order/s specified the nominations for a specified period as required by Section 29 of the act itself.