VADAKKANCHERY K S SANGAM Vs. JOINT REGISTRAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Alathur Cooperative Marketing Society has conducted election to the managing committee of the Society, Under the bye laws of the Society, four members of the committee have to be elected from the delegates representing primary member societies and three members have to be elected from among individual members. The petitioners are delegates of four societies, who were entitled to vote at the election. This fact is admitted. They submitted their nominations. It is stated that they were rejected on an absolutely wrong interpretation of R.45(1) of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Rules, which reads as follows:

(2.) After admitting the O.P., in the stay application an order was passed that "the announcement of the result of the election with regard to 'A' class members (delegates from societies) will be stayed until further orders from this Court." The result of the election of the individual members has been published.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioners states that in view of the patent illegality committed in the rejection of the nomination of the petitioners, this Court can interfere under Art 226 of the Constitution notwithstanding the remedy available under S.69 of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Act. He states, relying on a decision in Devassy v. Asst. Registrar of Cooperative Societies ( 1976 KLT 40 ), that under R.35(3)(b) of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Rules, the Committee has to prepare a list of the members qualified to vote at election and where the members are really the societies, the list need show only the names of the societies and not the names of the delegates of those societies. If so, when the petitioners societies were already members in the voter list, the delegates of those societies were entitled to submit their nomination. The disqualification under R.45(1) not being attracted, nomination papers of the petitioners were validly submitted and the rejection was plainly illegal.