N NARADARAJAN Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment will dispose of the aforementioned writ petitions as a common question of law is involved in the same. In majority of the writ petitions, the validity of G.O.Ms. No. 269, Co-operative Department, dated 8-6-1988, is questioned. In the rest, the validity of the action pursuant to the said Government Order is challenged on the basis of the plea of invalidity of the said Government Order though there is no prayer for declaring the said Govenment Order as invalid. In short, all the writ petitions depend upon the validity of the said Government Order. It is agreed at the Bar by all the concerned lawyers that the writ petitions can be disposed of on the question of the validity of the aforementioned Government Order alone. It will be, therefore, our task to test the constitutional validity of the abovementioned Government Order.

(2.) We have found practically from all the writ petitions that on the basis of the aforesaid Government Order, the proceedings of inquiry started under S. 81 of the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act, 1983 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act" for the sake of brevity) have been questioned contending that the officers holding those inquiries on the direction of the "empowered officers" under the aforesaid Government Order could not hold legally the inquiries as authorisation in their favour is itself wanting in legal sanction.

(3.) The aforementioned Government Order has been issued by the State Government in exercise of the powers conferred by S. 3 of the Act and thereby powers specified in entries in column 2 were conferred on the officers specified in column 1 of the table appended to the said order. It will be beneficial first to see the provisions of S. 3 of the Act, which reads as under :