SUSHIL PATEL Vs. COLLECTOR BHANDARA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE controversy involved in this petition is extremely interesting. There is a huge gamut of facts before the controversy can be stated and hence, the facts first.

(2.) THE 30 petitioners have filed this petition seeking the setting aside of the order passed by the Collector on 10-9-1993 by which the Collector directed the deletion of the names of these petitioners from the final list of voters. This list was prepared for the purposes of the elections of Bhandara District central Co-operative Bank Limited and these elections initially were to be held in the year 1993. Shortly stated, the case of the petitioners is that they had applied during the months of April, May and July, 1991 for the membership of the Respondent No. 3 Bank and duly submitted the applications. In fact, they were not communicated anything regarding their application for the membership for two months but it is an uncontroverted fact that on 20-12-1991 the Resolution came to be passed admitting these petitioners to be the members. Now had this Resolution, dated 20-12-1991 been the final step in the whole term, the further controversy would not have arisen at all However, there is a Bye-law No. 17-A, of the Bank which runs as under s

(3.) NOW it is to be seen that there are rules under which the election of the Specified Co-operative Societies are held. It is an admitted position that the Respondent No. 3 is a Specified Society and, therefore, the elections would be governed by the Maharashtra Specified Co-operative Societies elections to Committee Rules, 1971. Rule 4 provides for the preparation of the provisional list of voters while Rule 6 speaks about the claims and the objections to the provisional list of voters. It seems that the present respondent No, 4 Shri Vasant Gurjar raised an objection under Rule 6 to the inclusion of the present petitioners in the provisional list. The said objection was decided by the Collector, Bhandara by his order, dated 20-5-1993. In his order the Collector found that the District Deputy registrar, Co-operative Societies had already granted permission which was post facto permission and, therefore, the 30 petitioners would be the valid members. If we consider Rule 4, it will be clear that only those members could be included in the provisional list who were the members on 30th of June of the year immediately preceding the year in which the election is due or on some other day fixed by Registrar. The Collector relied on a decision of this Court and held that it was not open to the collector to upset the register of members by holding an enquiry under rule 6 (1 ). He found that since the new members had applied for the membership between the period 1990 and 1991 and since the Resolution was also passed on 20-12-1991, the names of the 30 petitioners were rightly included and in that view of the matter, he rejected the objection of the respondent No. 4. The matter did not stop there and ultimately on 26-5-1993 the Collector published the final list of voters in pursuance of rule 7 of the rules.