M.P. STATE COOPERATIVE BANK MYDT. BHOPAL THROUGH ITS AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHRI P.S. TIWARI Vs. SUSHIL KUMAR KANOONGO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order shall govern disposal of aforementioned four cases.

(2.) Counsel for the petitioners contends that initially the respondents had assailed their termination by taking recourse to remedy available in terms of Sec. 55 of M.P. Cooperative Societies Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as "Act of 1960" for the sake of brevity). The Joint Registrar vide order dtd. 10/8/2021 contained in Annexure P-2, though held that the termination of the petitioner was illegal and accordingly set aside the same yet also observed that their induction in service was not in accordance with the statutory provisions contained in the Act as well as Rules made there-under. The Joint Registrar also made an observation that if in future steps are taken to fill up the vacancies, the entire exercise shall be done while ensuring adherence to the statutory provisions. The order passed by the Joint Registrar was assailed before the Tribunal by the employees. The Tribunal vide an order contained in Annexure P-3 dtd. 29/3/2006 remitted back the matter to the Joint Registrar again while permitting the petitioner Bank to incorporate certain amendments in the written statement and the Joint Registrar was further extended liberty to frame additional issues and record further additional evidence. The order passed by the Tribunal dtd. 29/3/2006 was assailed before this Court in a writ petition filed vide W.P. No. 4822/2006 by the employees. The said Writ Petition was dismissed vide an order dtd. 29/1/2008. Thereafter the employees filed Writ Appeal as well. The Writ Appeal was also dismissed vide order dtd. 10/1/2011 (Annexure P-5). Thereafter Special Leave Petition was filed by the employees vide Special Leave to Appeal (C) Nos. 17329-17334/2011; however, the same was also dismissed by an order dtd. 22/1/2019 (Annexure P-6).

(3.) Initially the order of Joint Registrar dtd. 24/12/2019 was subject matter of a suo motu revision but the said suo motu revision was dismissed vide order dtd. 28/1/2022 (Annexure P-1). After the order of the Joint Registrar dtd. 28/1/2022, the petitioner approached the Madhya Pradesh Cooperative Tribunal in terms of Sec. 78 of the Act of 1960 along with an application filed under Sec. 5 of the Limitation Act. The Tribunal, while dealing with the application filed under Sec. 5 of the Limitation Act, vide impugned order dtd. 26/4/2023 (Annexure P/12), has dismissed the appeal being barred by limitation and also on the ground that the appeal was not filed by the Managing Director in terms of Sec. 49-A(1) H of the Act of 1960 as well as Clause 47 (2) of byelaws of Society as the Managing Director was empowered to file the appeal but the appeal was filed by the Assistant General Manager (Karmik) Societies General Manager (Karmik). Thus assailing the order passed by the Joint Registrar as well as Tribunal this petition is filed.