DEEPAK H MEWANI Vs. DISTRICT DEPUTY REGISTRAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have heard the learned Advocates of both the sides at length on this first day of my summer vacation by the consent of the learned Advocates in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case.

(2.) IT appears that the respondent No. 3 bank had challenged before the Supreme Court of India the interim order dated 14-5-2001 passed by this Court (A. S. Aguiar, J.) staying the impugned order of repolling passed by the respondent No. 1 be held on 16-5-2001, till further orders and directing the Board of directors of the bank not to take any policy decision. The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the said interim order passed by this Court and dismissed the special leave petition by its order dated 16-7-2001. The Supreme Court, however, requested the High Court to dispose of the petition as expeditiously as possible preferably within two months. It appears that on account of extremely heavy board before the regular benches these petitions could not be disposed of as per the request of the Supreme Court. The learned Judge of the regular Bench gave liberty to the parties to move the Honble the Chief Justice for placing the matters before any other Judge taking up final hearing matters. Pursuant to the order dated 24-4-2002 passed by the Honble The Chief Justice these petitions were placed before me for final disposal. Inspite of very heavy board of very old matters knocking the doors of this Court for more than a decade for final decisions, in deference to the request made by the Supreme Court, I have heard this group as aforesaid and I have disposed them of finally as under:

(3.) NEITHER my learned Brothers Shri Aguiar, J. , or Shri Radhakrishnan, J. , had granted Rule in these petitions nor do I intend to do as I consider them worthless and without any merits. The petitioners in all the above petitions are aggrieved by the order passed by the respondent No. 1, the District Returning Officer and District Deputy Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Pune on 5-5-2001 in exercise of his powers vested in him under section 73 (1) (c) of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 read with Rule 56-A to set aside the polling done on 29-4-2001 for the election of Board of Directors of the Bank for the period from 2001-02 to 2005-06 from the Reserved Constituencies and to order repolling to be held for those four reserved seats on 16-5-2001. The learned authority had appointed a fresh Returning Officer with a direction to him to complete the process on the same day in accordance with the prescribed Rules. The earlier Returning Officer had expressed his inability to deal with the election process for lack of past experience of such work and had requested the respondent No. 1, his superior authority to change the assignment.