ADIRAJU MALLIKARJANA RAO Vs. SOMAVARAM CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY NOH-774, REPRESENTED BY PRISIDENT SOMAVARAPU CHANDRAMOULESWARA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for a writ of certiorari directed to the Somavaram Co-operative Societies and the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies. I am invited to quash the award of the Deputy Registrar to whom a dispute between petitioner (ex-president of the Society) and the Cooperative Society had been referred on the ground that the Deputy Registrar has no jurisdiction under Section 51 of the Cooperative Societies Act to decide such a dispute.

(2.) The facts are briefly as follows:--The petitioner as president of the Society had made loans to four persons, which were irrecoverable. Petitioner ceased to be President on 17th July, 1931. Over two years later (namely, on 25 November, 1933), the Co-operative Society resolved to refer the matter to the arbitration of the Registrar and claim No. 2 of 1934 was filed very early in 1934 against petitioner. For a year this claim was pending before the Deputy Registrar, being eventually decided only on 13 March, 1935, in a long judgment which dealt with the merits fully, from which it does not appear that any objection was ever taken by petitioner to the jurisdiction of the Deputy Registrar under Section 51. It is on the other hand clear that petitioner resisted the claim and fought it on the merits. After the claim had been decided in March, 1935, there was more than a year's delay on petitioner's part in applying to this Court for a writ of certiorari. An ill-advised revision petition was filed in September, and dismissed in November. During this interval of a year petitioner's property was sold in execution of the Deputy Registrar's decree, the sale was confirmed and the property delivered to the auction purchasers. The present petition was filed only on 5 May, 1936.

(3.) Now it has been held in Narayana Aiyar V/s. The Co-operative Urban Bank, Ltd., Tinnevelly that a Registrar has no jurisdiction under Section 51 of the Act to decide a dispute between a Co-operative Society and an ex-officer. This decision, if I may say so with respect, seems to me, to be correct and I therefore propose to deal with this petition on the assumption that the Deputy Registrar had in fact no jurisdiction to pass a decree.