- (1.) The revisional petition is directed against an order refusing to reject a plaint under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Code. The plaintiff, an employee of the second defendant, obtained credit facilities from the first defendant-bank which is a co-operative society governed by the West Bengal Co-operative Societies Act, 2006. Following the alleged default on the part of the plaintiff in repaying the loan, the petitioner-bank sought to realise the payment from the salary of the plaintiff and issued a notice to the plaintiffs employer in such regard. The plaintiff thereafter carried the suit to the City Civil Court at Calcutta, claiming a declaration that the plaintiff was entitled to accounts and seeking a mandatory and permanent injunction directing the defendants to not deduct any amount from the plaintiff's salary on account of any claim of the petitioner herein.
(2.) The petitioner, as the first defendant to the suit, cited section 145 of the 2006 Act for the purpose of demonstrating that the suit was barred by law. section 145(2) of the Act, in its material part, provides that no Civil Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of anything done or any action taken or any order passed under the said Act, inter alia, in regard to any dispute required to be referred to the Registrar under section 102 of the Act. Section 102(1) of the Act mandates that any dispute concerning the management or business or affairs of a co-operative society, other certain excepted matters which are irrelevant in the present context, shall be filed before the Registrar for settlement if it pertains to, inter alia, a matter between a cooperative society and any person having transaction with it. The expression "having transaction with it" must necessarily imply a transaction in connection with the authorised purpose of the co-operative society. The petitioner here is authorised to accord credit facilities. It is also not in dispute that the subject matter of the suit is the loan transaction between the petitioner herein and the plaintiff.
(3.) The petitioner has relied on a Full Bench judgment of this Court where section 134(2)(d) of the previous Act of 1983, which appears to have been in pari materia with section 145(2)(d) of the present Act, fell for consideration and it was held that any matter covered by clause Id) of the relevant section could not be carried to a Civil Court. Section 95 of the old Act was slightly different from how section 102 of the present Act reads, but there is no material difference in the two provisions for the purpose relevant in the present context. Though the plaintiff suggests that the second defendant in the suit has been sued in his capacity as a surety, the mere presence of the second defendant would not permit the plaintiff to indirectly do what the plaintiff could not directly do by virtue of section 145(2)(d) of the said Act of 2006.;