Baljit Singh and Others vs The Special Secretary (Appeals), Cooperation Department and Others

Satish Kumar Mittal, J.—The petitioners are members of Pandori Cooperative Agricultural Service Society Limited, Pandori (hereinafter referred to as ''Society''), which is registered under the provisions of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ''the Act''). The petitioners except petitioner No. 3 are the sons of ex-Committee members, who are since deceased and petitioner No. 3 is the ex-Committee member of the Society.

Undisputedly, one Mehar Singh, who was Secretary of the Society at one point of time, had embezzled an amount of Rs. 2,80,979/- during the years 1975-76 and 1976-77, and in execution of an arbitration award, only an amount of Rs. 98,600/- was recovered from him. The Managing Committee of the Society vide resolution dated 18.4.1995 decided to recover the remaining amount from the then members of the Managing Committee without interest. Further, the General Body of the Society also passed a resolution dated 9.5.1995 that only principal amount could be recovered from the ex-Committee members and, thus, approved the waiving of interest on the embezzled amount.

The aforesaid two resolutions were set aside by the Deputy Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Ludhiana vide order dated 3.7.1997 on the ground that under the Punjab Co-operative Societies Rules, 1963 (hereinafter referred to as ''the Rules'') and bye-laws of the Society, the Managing Committee and General Body of the Society were having no authority to waive-off the interest.

Feeling aggrieved against the said order, the petitioners filed a revision petition before the Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Patiala Division, Patiala, which was dismissed vide order dated 31.1.2005. Still feeling aggrieved, the petitioners filed revision petition u/s 69 of the Act, which was also dismissed by the Special Secretary, Cooperation (A), Punjab, Chandigarh while observing as under:

I have considered the written arguments of both the counsels and gone through the record. The order of the Joint Registrar dated 31.1.2005 is perfectly legal. Rule 38 provides powers to the Registrar to waive off the bad debts and in the present case the amount due was not even declared as bad debts and the Managing Committee and the General Body of the Society in violation of the bye laws passed resolution to waive off the interest which they were not authorized to do so. Moreover, the Joint Registrar has decided this case considering it as a revision petition u/s 69 of the Act and no second revision petition u/s 69 lies under Act. However, if the arguments of the learned Counsel for the petitioner is believed that they had wrongly written the appeal as revision petition, even then they failed to succeed in the present case because of lack of merits. Thus, revision petition is dismissed." The petitioners have assailed the aforesaid three orders in this writ petition.

After hearing the counsel for the parties, we do not find any ground to interfere in the instant petition. The Deputy Registrar, Cooperative Society has set aside the resolutions passed by the Managing Committee and General Body of the Society waiving-off the interest on the ground that neither the Managing Committee nor the General Body has any authority to waive-off the interest. Rule 38 of the Rules provides that ''no Cooperative Society shall write off, in whole or in part, any debt or other sums due to it without the previous sanction of the Register''. Undisputedly, in this case before passing the aforesaid two reservations, no approval of the Registrar was obtained. Either before the authorities below or in the present petition, the petitioners have not challenged the orders of the Managing Committee or General Body of the Society to recover the remaining principal amount from the petitioners. It is the case of the petitioners that the Managing Committee and the General Body of the Society passed the aforesaid two resolutions to recover only the principal amount from ex-Committee members without interest. However, the Deputy Registrar, Co-operative Societies, on the basis of the report submitted by respondent No. 5, set aside the aforesaid two resolutions passed by the Managing Committee and the General Body of the Society on the ground that they were having no authority to waive-off the interest.

In our opinion, the authorities below have rightly set aside the aforesaid two resolutions passed by the Managing Committee and the General Body of the Society on the ground that under ''the Rules'' and bye-laws of the Society, they have no authority to waive-off the interest on the amount recoverable from ex-members of Managing Committee of the Society. Thus, we do not find any ground to set aside the impugned orders.

Dismissed.

Sd/- Jaswant Singh, J.