E ANBARASU Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petitioner is a member of Tamilnadu Accountant General Office, Staff Cooperative Credit Societies at Chennai. He has come forward to file the present writ petition, seeking for a writ in the nature of Declaration, declaring that Section 117 of the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act 2002 (Central Act 39 of 2002) as ultra vires and also to declare the elections held on 28.11.2008 by the 4th respondent as null and void.

(2.) IN normal circumstances, an election dispute in a Cooperative Society, whether formed under the State enactment or under the Central Act cannot be gone into in the light of a larger Bench judgment of this Court in K.Marappan Vs. The Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Namakkal Circle, Namakkal and another reported in (2006 (4) CTC 689). However, since the petitioner has come forward to challenge the vires of Section 117, the writ petition was admitted on 24.04.2001. Pending the writ petition, this Court declined to grant any interim relief.

(3.) MR .L.Chandrakumar, learned counsel for the petitioner also fairly admitted that his client is now the member of the said Society. The objection to Section 117 is more emotional than real because, similar provision such as Section 117 viz., barring the jurisdiction of Courts have been found in very many enactments, but on that ground, the Act cannot be struck down. In the present Central Act, the Act provides for an appeal and a review by the appropriate authorities. If any person is aggrieved by such orders, there is always judicial review available under Article 226 of the Constitution. As it has already been held in the judgment in L.Chandrakumar v. Union of India reported in AIR 1997 SC 1125, that the power under Article 226 can never be excluded even by parliamentary enactment as the power conferred on this Court is plenary power and basic structure of the constitution. Therefore, merely because there is a bar of jurisdiction by Court, that does not mean that it includes the High Court. In other respects, the Act provides for statutory appellate remedy. Therefore, the petitioner, if he is aggrieved can always have recourse to make an appeal or review before the appropriate authorities. When once the constitutional validity of Section 117 is removed, then what remains is only elections held on 28.11.2008 for the 4th respondent Society, which the petitioner wants to impugn, that prayer alone cannot be countenanced in the light of Marappan's case (cited supra).