BAWA DASS Vs. REGISTRAR CO OP SOC PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole point for consideration in Regular Second Appeal No. 2312 of 1987 is if the stock verification resulting in initiation of proceeding against plaintiff-appellant Bawa Dass could be termed as 'audit', 'enquiry' or 'inspection' as envisaged in Section 54 of the Punjab Cooperative ocieties Act, 1961. The query was ansewered in the negative by the learned District Judge, Gurdaspur, vide his assailed appellate judgment of April 28, 1987.

(2.) For coming to this conclusion the then learned District Judge, Gurdaspur, (who has since been elevated to the Bench of this Court) relied Upon the observations made by the Supreme Court in Pentakota Sriramulu v. Co-operative Market ing Society Ltd., Anakapalli and another, [AIR 1965 SC 621] and the observations made by our own High Court in Angoori Lai Sharma v. State oj Haryana and others, [1980 PLJ 86]. Relevant factual and legal position obtaining in the case is set out in paragraph 4 of the Judg- ment of the learned Court of first appeal which reads : "Provision of Section 54 of the Punjab Co-operative Societies Act is not attracted to the case in hand and the trial Court wrongly held so. There is force in this contention. Ex. P. 1 is the notice which was issued on January 20, 1973. Some physical stock verification was done on June 30, 1972 and it came to light that the plaintiff had concealed the sale proceedings worth Rs. 29072.18 paise. The plaintiff had misappropriated the aforesaid amount and thus caused loss to the store. He was asked to explain us to why legal action should not be taken against him, failing which it was also mentioned that a case should be registered against him. Ex. P. 2 is the order dated February 7, 1979 appointing Pyare Lal as arbitrator under Section 55 of the Co-operative Societies Act, for the recovery of different amounts, as mentioned therein. P. W 1 is Bawa Dass the plaintiff. He referred to the facts, which are given in the plaint, briefly. He also referred to Ex. P. 1 and Ex. P. 2. At no stage he stated that any amount was found to have been due from him in any audit, enquiry, inspection or winding up the proceedings of the Society. Merely because some amount was mentioaed in Ex. P. 1 to be due from Bawa Dass, it cannot be said that this amount was found in any audit, enquiry, inspection to attract the provision of Section 54 of the Act. Such a matter was under consideration of the Division Bench of Punjab and Haryana High Court in Angoori Lal Sharma v. State of Haryana and others, [1980 PLJ 86]. The observations of the Supreme Court in Pentakota Sriramulu v. Co-operative Marketing Society, [AIR 1965 SC 621] were referred to as under ;

(3.) I entirely agree with these findings and affirm them. There is no merit in the Regular Second Appeal and the same is, therefore, dismissed with costs. Appeal dismissed.