- (1.) Plaintiff-appellant filed this suit for recovery of Rs. 41,800/- (Rs. 22,000/- as the price of the goods supplied by the plaintiff to the defendant and Rs. 19,800/- as interest thereon at the rate of 12% per annum from the date of supply of the goods to the date of institution of the suit).
(2.) In the plaint, it was averred that the plaintiff supplied 272 bags of wheat between 21st June, 1967 to 23rd June, 1967 and the price of this wheat was Rs. 26,000/-. Plaintiff had one half share in this amount and the remaining one half share belonged to Lal Singh son of the plaintiff. Consequently plaintiff claimed entitlement of Rs. 13,000/-. In addition to this, plaintiff also supplied 58 bags of Alsi, one bag of Toria and 3 bags of Tarmira which were sold to the society on 15th September, 1976 for Rs. 9000/-. In this way, the plaintiff was entitled to recover section 22,000/-. Since this amount was not paid to him the plaintiff was entitled to recover interest on this principal amount at the rate of 12% per annum. which works out to be Rs. 19,800/- (total recoverable amount comes to Rs. 41,800/-). Since the plaintiff was being treated as a member of the society, plaintiff raised an arbitration dispute in which Bawa Singh Inspector was nominated as arbitrator by the Registrar of the Cooperative Societies. The arbitrator vide his award dated 7th March, 1973 held that the plaintiff was not a member of the society and, therefore, no award was given by the arbitrator, reference being incompetent. Notice under section 79 of the Cooperative Societies Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) was served upon the Registrar. On 16th October, 1973, the society went into liquidation. Since no suit could be filed against the society which was under liquidation except with the permission of the Registrar under section 82 of the Act, permission was sought from the Registrar for filing the suit. Since there was delay on the part of the Registrar in giving permission, plaintiff filed a writ petition which was disposed of by this Court with a direction to the Registrar to decide the matter within a period of two months and it was, thereafter that the permission was granted by the Registrar on 25th November, 1974 and thereafter the present suit was filed.
(3.) Suit was vehemently contested. Technical pleas that the suit was barred by time; principles of res judicata/i and bar available under section 82 of the Act were taken. Plea of non-joinder of proper and necessary parties was also taken. On merits, it was stated that the plaintiff had never supplied the commodities as alleged by him in the plaint and that no money was due from the society to the plaintiff and in fact the money was due from the plaintiff to the society. An award had also been made against the plaintiff and the same was pending execution.;