S.SIVARAMAN Vs. REGISTRAR OF CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Kalkulam Vilavancode Taluk Co-operative Marketing Society Ltd., Y-285 is a Society registered under the provisions of Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act, 1983. It is said to have several thousand members. It is a leading society in implementing the Public Distribution System in Kalkulam Vilavancode Taluks of Kanyakumari District. On 09.06.2018, the term of the previous Board of Directors expired. Election was held on 13.10.2018 for the Board. On 16.10.2018, one Nanchil Dominic and R.Lekshmana Chandra were elected as the President and Vice President of the society. The petitioner is one of the members of the society. Some 197 members of the society including the petitioner submitted a written requisition to the fourth respondent for convening a special general body meeting of the society with a single agenda to remove Thiru.Nanchil Dominic from the basic membership of the society. Since no action has been taken based on the said requisition, this writ petition came to be filed.

(2.) The learned counsel appearing for the fifth respondent filed his counter affidavit and also written arguments. The fifth respondent has strongly denied the allegations made against him. According to the fifth respondent, the society has 11 Board of Directors on its board who elected him as the president. He is an office bearer of the society as per Section 2(18) of the Act. If the office bearers are to be removed from their posts, Rule 62 is applicable. Reliance on Rule 61 of the Act is misplaced. The president of the society can be removed only by following the procedure set out in Rule 62 and not in any other manner. The learned counsel for the fifth respondent would point out that Section 25 of the Act deals only with expulsion of a member from the society. It does not give any power to the Registrar to convene special general body meeting if the board fails to do so. It is further alleged that this writ petition has been hastily filed even without making a formal demand to the Registrar of the Cooperative Societies.

(3.) The learned counsel for the fifth respondent placed reliance on a host of decisions in support of the contention that if the statute requires a thing to be done in a particular manner, it should be done in that manner and not in any other manner. The Registrar can convene such general body meeting of board only if the request is made by 2/3rd of the members of the board under Rule 62(2) of the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Societies Rules, 1988. He also pointed out that the requirements set out in Rule 62(3) are mandatory. The learned counsel placed reliance on the decisions reported in 2000 W.L.R. 379, 2015 (2) CTC 52 and 2001 (1) CTC