Chandrashekar Mahadappa Mitkari vs State Of Maharashtra And Ors.
2002 Latest Caselaw 292 Bom

JUDGMENT

D.G. Karnik, J.

1. Rule returnable forthwith. By consent petition taken up for final hearing.

2. This petition is filed by the petitioner who was appointed as a Chairman of respondent No. 3 Society and who has been removed by no-confidence motion

passed on 30th October 2001. A notice was issued by this court to the respondents asking them to show cause why the petition should not be disposed of finally at the admission stage itself. In pursuance of the notice, the respondents appeared and the petition is heard today.

3. The facts may be stated briefly thus:--

On 11th February 2001, the petitioner was elected as Chairman of the respondent No. 13 society. There were 9 members of the Managing Committee including the Chairman and the Vice Chairman. On 19th October 2001, three members of the Managing Committee (being equal to 1/3 of the total strength complete) submitted a requisition notice under section 73-ID of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 (for short the Act) read with Rule 57-A of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961 (for short the Rules) to the District Deputy Registrar requesting him to convene a meeting of respondent No. 13 Society for considering resolution of no-confidence motion against the Chairman. The requisition was signed by 3 members whose signatures were attested by a Special Executive Magistrate, and was accompanied by a copy of the grounds for the proposed resolution.

4. The respondent No. 3 (District Deputy Registrar) convened the meeting of the respondent No. 13 society on 30th October 2001 for considering the said no-confidence resolution. In the meeting, the resolution was passed by a 2/3 majority of the members of the committee. 6 out of 9 members voted in favour of the resolution while 3 voted against. The petitioner was thus removed from the position of the Chairman. The petitioner thereafter filed a revision challenging his removal, purportingly under section 154 of the Act, before the Divisional Joint Registrar, Latur (respondent No. 2 herein) who by order dated 31-1-2002 dismissed the revision. This order of the second respondent dated 31-1-2002 is challenged in this Writ Petition.

5. In my opinion, revision under section 154 of the Act itself was not maintainable. Section 154 confers a power on the State Government or the Registrar, suo motu or an application, to call for and examine the record of any enquiry or proceedings of any decision or order passed by any subordinate officer where no appeal lies against such decision or order. No revision lies against a resolution passed in a meeting of a Society. A resolution passed in the meeting cannot be a subject matter of a revision under section 154 of the Act. In view of this, the Revision before the respondent No. 2 Joint Registrar was incompetent. Hence no writ would lie challenging the order dismissing the revision.

6. In this view of the matter, petition is dismissed. Rule discharged with no order as to costs.