HIRANMAY BHATTACHARYYA,J. - (1.) The Secretary of a Consumer Co-operative Stores has preferred the instant intra court mandamus appeal challenging the order dated December 14, 2020 passed by a learned Single Judge in WPA 10410 of 2020.
(2.) By the order impugned the learned Single Judge directed the Andaman and Nicobar administration to appoint an Administrator for assisting the Deputy Registrar in conducting the election and also to run the day to day affairs of the society until constitution of a newly elected Board.
(3.) The facts giving rise to the present appeal are as follows- The writ petitioners claim to be the shareholder members of the Consumer Co- operative Stores (for short the 'CCS') which is registered under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Co-operative Societies Regulation 1973 (for short the '1973 Regulation'). The writ petitioner claims that the last election was held in June, 2015 and as per the Bye-Laws approved by the Registrar of the Co-operative Societies an election is required to be conducted after every five years. The writ petitioner further claims that the election was scheduled on June 30, 2020 but due to the pandemic the tenure of the committee was extended twice for a period of three months each. The Registrar of Co-operative Societies issued a notice dated November 24, 2020 to the Secretary, CCS asking him to hold the election on December 20, 2020 on the basis of pre-updated list consisting of 19,000 members approximately. The writ petitioners filed the instant writ petition praying for a writ in the nature of certiorari quashing the notice dated November 24, 2020 and a mandamus directing the appellant herein to hold election in terms of the updated list.;