Adarsh Kumar Goel, J. - (1.) THE Petitioners are Primary Cooperative Agricultural Service registered under the Punjab Co -operative Societies Act, 1961 (for short the Act) and are members of the Amritsar Central Cooperative Bank Limited, Amritsar (for short the Bank), which is also a society registered under the Act. Under Section 23 of the Ac'., the final authority of a cooperative society vests in the general body of the members, but a society can form a smaller body which can exercise powers of the general body as per the bye -laws. Under the Model Bye -Laws, the powers of the society are exercised by the Managing Committee to be elected in accordance with the Act and the Punjab Co -operative Society Rules 1963 (for short the Rules). Section 26 of the Act provides for the election and nomination of the members of a committee. Rule 23 of the Rules ibid lays down that election of the members of the committee shall be held in accordance with Appendix 'C' to the Rules and para 4 of the said Appendix provides for drawing up of election programme and preparation of zonal list. As per bye -law 30 of the Bank, nine Directors are to be elected by the member societies out of which seven are to be from the Agricultural Service Societies.
(2.) THIS writ petition was filed on 6.4.2000 challenging the order dated 17.2.2000, Annexure P -8 passed by the Joint Registrar, Co -operative Societies rejecting the objections regarding formulation of the zones. Further challenge was to the election programme issued on 30.3.2000 for holding election on 27.4.2000. It was stated that notices were not sent to all the members, the preparation of zones was not proper inasmuch as some of the societies had not been included in any zone and several development blocks have been included in a single zone: principle of contiguity has not been taken into account and thus the election on the basis of improper zonal list and without notice to the member societies will not be proper. It was further submitted that under para 4 of Appendix 'C', zonal list and election programme are to be drawn up by the Manager who is defined in para 1(b), as a person appointed by the Registrar, and if no such person was appointed, then by the head of the cooperative society. While in the present case, the election programme had been drawn up and zonal list prepared by the Managing Director who was himself a candidate, and not by the Manager as required. On 24.4.2000, this Court stayed the election of the office bearers (through the prayer in the writ petition was to stay the holding of the election of the Directors, which was scheduled to be held on 27.4.2000). The election was, therefore, held as scheduled and Respondent Nos. 8 to 15 who were elected as Directors were impleaded as parties, in addition to Respondent No. 6 who was already a party.
(3.) WRITTEN statements was filed on behalf of Respondent Nos. 1 to 4. It was submitted that a copy of the voter lists was duly displayed on the notice boards in the offices of the Joint Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Amritsar and the Head office of the Amritsar Central Cooperative Bank Limited, Amritsar: notice regarding formulation of zones was duly published in the newspapers and the zones had been duly approved by the Joint Registrar after following the necessary procedure: the Development Block was not maintained as a unit as there were eight blocks but seven zones. It was further stated that the zones have been prepared on the basis of contiguity. Separate written statements were filed by Respondent No. 5 and by Respondent No. 6. No written statement has been filed by Respondent No. 7 who is a Minister of Cooperation in the Government of Punjab and who, it has been stated in paras 27 and 28 of the writ petition, influenced the election.;