SURESH CHAND Vs. DELHI CO OPERATIVE TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this writ petition, the following reliefs have been prayed for:-

(2.) As will be apparent from the reliefs sought, the petitioners are essentially challenging the validity of the elections held on 11.03.2007 of the office bearers of the Managing Committee of the respondent No. 3 society. The petitioners claim that respondents 5 to 17 were disqualified from contesting the elections. We may point out, at this juncture, that during the pendency of the writ petition, respondent Nos. 14 and 24 passed away and the learned counsel for the petitioner has dropped them from the array of parties. The learned counsel for the petitioners has taken up two grounds in support of the claim that the respondents 5 to 17 were disqualified from contesting the elections held on 11.03.2007. The first ground taken is that the said respondents were members of the previous Managing Committee and that the said Managing Committee had not completed the audit of accounts of the society within the time stipulated. Therefore", according to the learned counsel for the petitioner, the said respondents incurred the disqualification set out in Section 35 (7)(d) of the Delhi Co-operative Societies Act, 2003 (hereinafter referred to as 'the said Act'). The second point urged on behalf of the petitioners is that the said respondents stood disqualified by virtue of bye-law 24 (b) of the bye-laws of the respondent No. 3 society.

(3.) The petitioners had filed an appeal under Section 112 of the said Act taking, inter alia, the aforesaid pleas, before the Delhi Co-operative Tribunal. The respondent No. 3 society and the other respondents had taken the plea of maintainability of an appeal under Section 112 before the said Tribunal. The Delhi Co-operative Tribunal rejected the plea of maintainability raised by the respondents in the following words:-