NARAYANA PILLAI Vs. EASWARA PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff, whose suit for recovery of certain sums from a cooperative society has been dismissed by both the courts below, is the appellant in this Second Appeal. It is admitted that the plaintiff was a member of the Cooperative Society. Plaintiff stated that he had advanced certain loans to the Society before he became a member of the society and that he was in the employ of the Society for over three years for remuneration promised, and that, on account of all these, amounts are due to him besides what he has remitted as share value to the Society. He has filed this suit for settlement of accounts and recovery of the amounts that may be found due from the Cooperative Society. The learned Munsiff held that since the plaintiff is a past member of the Cooperative Society the suit is barred by S.60 of the Travancore-Cochin Cooperative Societies Act, 1951. When the matter was taken in appeal, the learned Subordinate Judge upheld the Munsiff. Hence this Second Appeal by the plaintiff.

(2.) There is one vital defect in the frame of this suit, viz., that the Cooperative Society against whom the claim is made, has not been made a defendant in the suit. The learned counsel for the appellant contended that the members of the managing committee of the Cooperative Society have been impleaded as defendants and as such the Society is adequately represented in this suit, and relied on Radha Lal v. East Indian Railway Co. Ltd. (ILR 5 Patna 128) in support. There the defendant was described as Agent of the East Indian Railway Co.. The learned Judges held that the suit being against a Railway Company the proper name under which the company should have been sued was the name and style under which the company carried on its business; though the plaintiffs had not chosen to describe so in the plaint, they had in their application for issue of process described the defendant as the East Indian Railway Company and the Company itself entered appearance and contested the suit; and that in such circumstances the Company was understood by all concerned as the real defendant in the case, and allowed the suit to be proceeded with accordingly. In this case it is not even averred in the plaint that the defendants have been impleaded as representatives of the Cooperative Society. In the cause-title of the plaint, only the personal addresses of the individual members of the managing committee of the Society have been given.

(3.) S.24 of the Travancore-Cochin Cooperative Societies Act, 1951 enunciates: