SEWA SAHAKARI SANSTHA MAHAGARH Vs. RAMCHANDRA NARAYAN KOKIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India relates to the affairs of Sewa Sahakari Sanstha, Mahagarh, a primary credit society duly registered under the M. P. Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as the act ). The petitioners seek to have the order, dated, 22-6-1972 (Annexure X to the petition) issued by the Assistant Registrar, Cooperative Societies, District mandsaur quashed hereby. By this order purporting to be made under Section 57 (a) of the Act, the Assistant Registrar has directed the Co-operative Extension officer, District Mandsaur (respondent No. 2) to seize the entire record of the society from the petitioners and to hand over the same thereafter to Bhawani shankar (respondent No. 3) who has been described as the President of the equivalent Citation: society.

(2.) AT the very outset, we are constrained to observe that the undisputed facts placed before us do disclose a shocking state of affairs in respect of the management of the Society and it is clear that notwithstanding such facts being brought to the notice of the Assistant Registrar, no action was taken, by the assistant Registrar to put an end to the highhanded manner in which the affairs of the society were being managed by respondent No. 3 Bhawani Shankar, who had been elected as the President of the Society at the end of 1967. We have no doubt that but for such inaction of the Assistant Registrar, which must be attributed at least to his callous indifference if not active complicity with the respondent No. 3 bhawani Shankar, the situation which resulted therefrom and has ultimately occasioned this petition, would not have arisen.

(3.) ON 31-12-1967, the Board of Directors of the Society was elected and respondent No. 3 was made its President. The first annual general meeting was then held on 2-10-1968. Admittedly, the term of the Board of Directors was for a period of three years so that the term of the Board of Directors elected on 31-121967 including the President and the Vice-President was to expire on 31-12-1970. According to Section 49 of the Act, the Society was required to call the annual general meeting within a period of 12 months from the date of last annual general meeting and if the term of the Committee was to end within a period of three months from the date of the annual general meeting, then the election of the members of the Committee had also to be held therein. It is strange that after the first annual general meeting of the society, which was held on 2-10-1968, the next annual general meeting was admittedly held only on 11-6-1972 and during the period intervening either no such meeting was called or if it was called the president Bhawani Shankar (respondent No. 3) adjourned it on some pretext or the other, which, in our opinion, was no justification for postponing the annual general meeting. During this period, the petitioners brought the dereliction of this duty on the part of the President to the notice of the authorities but, as already stated, they remained silent on the issue. Obviously such conduct on the part of the authorities assisted the respondent No. 3, Bhawani Shankar in deferring the calling of the annual general meeting till it was held on 11-6-1972.