WAIKHOM JITEN SINGH Vs. TH. SABANAM DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Imphal Urban Co-operative Bank Limited is a co-operative society registered under the Manipur Co-operative Societies Act, 1976, (for brevity, 'the Act of 1976'). As per its Bye-law No. 32, the management of the affairs of the Bank is to vest in a Board of Directors which would have a term of 5 years. The Bye-law provides that one month before the expiry of the term of the outgoing Board, the Bank must call for a Representative General Meeting to elect new members and such election is to be conducted by an independent body/authority constituted by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Manipur (in short, 'the Registrar'), in accordance with the Election Rules of the Bank.

(2.) However, it appears that there was no election to the Board of Directors of the Bank for a long time which led to the filing of writ petitions, viz., W.P. (C) Nos. 536 and 549 of 2017, before this Court. These writ petitions were allowed by common order dtd. 6/9/2017, whereby the Registrar was directed to ensure that election to the Board of Directors of the Bank was held within a time frame. Institution of Contempt Case (C) No. 205 of 2017, alleging disobedience to the order dtd. 6/9/2017, finally resulted in positive action. The Returning Officer, appointed by the Registrar, finalized the list of voters and election of Delegates from different Groups of shareholders/ members was held on 29/4/2018. Thereafter, Notice dtd. 3/11/2018 was issued by the Bank notifying the elected Delegates that election to the Board of Directors for the term 2017-18 to 2021-22 would be held on 2/12/2018. Protracted litigation relating to the proposed election resulted in the process hanging fire till date.

(3.) Historic narrative being rather long and tortuous, it would be apposite to recount only facts pertinent to the present adjudication: By Notice dtd. 12/11/2018, the Returning Officer informed candidates for election to the Board of Directors that at the time of scrutiny of their nomination papers, they should be personally present along with the Proposer and Seconder. The scrutiny was to be taken up on 17/11/2018 for Groups A to F and on 19/11/2018 for Groups G to L. Upon completion of such scrutiny, the Returning Officer issued Notice dtd. 20/11/2018 recording that the documents submitted by fifteen candidates were in order but five of them were ineligible to contest the election for violation of Bye-law No. 33 of the Bank's Bye-laws. The names of the five ineligible candidates and of the ten eligible candidates were detailed in the Notice dtd. 20/11/2018.