BHAVNAGAR DISTRICT CO OP. BANK LIMITED Vs. REGISTRAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These petitions are filed by the Cooperative Bank making common grievance against exercise of powers by the Registrar, Gujarat state-the respondent No.1 and respondent No.2 in the first petition (Special Civil Application No.6430 of 1997) and second petition (Special Civil Application No.9575 of 2006) respectively in connection with the recruitment of the employees made by the bank.

(2.) The petitioner of the first petition is petitioner No.1 of the second petition. For the sake of convenience, it shall be referred as the petitioner bank. In the second petition, the petitioner No.2 is joined as the Chairman of the petitioner bank.

(3.) The petitioner bank is a cooperative society registered under the Gujarat Cooperative societies Act 1961 ('the Act" for short). Since it is doing business of banking, it is a cooperative bank as defined in clause (b) of subsection (1) of Section 5 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 ('the Banking Act') . As per Chapter V of the Banking Act, the reference to the banking company is to be construed as a reference to cooperative bank and for banking business, the provisions of Banking Act subject to modification mentioned in Chapter V, apply to the Cooperative Bank. Thus, the Cooperative Bank is a banking company for doing banking business as per the Banking Act. As stated in the petitions, the primary societies and federal societies at taluka level are the members of the petitioner bank which provide finances to such societies and its members. But it continues to be a cooperative society governed by the provisions of the Act. As per the definition of Central Bank in Section 2(3) of the Act, the petitioner bank being Central Bank is District Central Co-operative Bank and it is specified society under Section 74(C) of the Act.