Shamsher Bahadur, J. - (1.) THE substantial and surviving question arising in this writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India by Umrao Singh concerns the constitutional challenge to election programme. Annexure 'A', for the election of the Board of Directors of the Doaba Co -operative Sugar Mills Limited, Nawanshahr (hereinafter called the Society) whereby on the various dates in the month of November, 1968, shareholders' lists of the seven zonal electorates were formed and published to elect one Director each. This method of election, according to the Petitioner, is in violation of, and contrary to, the provisions of Section 24(b) specifically and Section 23 generally of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 (hereinafter called the Act) as also of Rule 22 of the Punjab Co -operative Societies Rules, 1963, and by -law 8 (iv) (e) of the By -laws of the Society, both provisions being statutory.
(2.) THE notification of the State Government of 6th of July, 1963, authorising the election of the Directors in different zones instead of a general meeting as required by Section 24 and 26 of the Act, under its plenary powers of Section 77 of the Act, is challenged on the ground that the said empowering Section 77 suffers from the vice of excessive delegation and in consequence void and ultra vires. Two other points raised in the petition do not require any discussion, one of these having been conceded by the State Government and the other not being pressed by Mr. Kuldip Singh, the learned Counsel for the Petitioner. Under by -law 9 of the By -laws of the Society, the board of Directors shall consist of 15 Directors, seven being representatives of individuals, three representatives of co -operative institutions and five being the Government nominees. The petition rightly attacks the provision with regard to five nominated Directors as under Section 26(2) of the Act, the Government where it has subscribed to the share capital of a co -operative society, as in this case, will have a right to nominate on the committee "such number of persons not exceeding three or one -third of the total number of members thereof. Both in the written statement and in the concession made by Mr. S. K. Jain, the learned Counsel for the State, it is made clear that the Government has no intention to depart from the requirements of Sub -section (2) of Section 26 and consequently this point of attack exhausts its force altogether. The other matter, which is not pressed by Mr. Kuldip Singh, is the method and manner of publication of the zonal electorates and the names of the individual shareholders included therein. We are, therefore, no longer concerned with this matter.
(3.) THE Petitioner is a Director of the Doaba Co -operative Sugar Mills Ltd., which has been registered under the Act and its area of operation extends to the whole State of Punjab, while the membership consists of both individuals owning shares of the Society and other Co -operative institutions. The share capital of the Society is one crore, each share being of the value of Rs 100. Th co -operative principle is preserved by the provision that no individual member would have a holding of shares valued for more than Rs. 25,000. The contentious clause in the by -laws of the Society is by -law 9 to which reference has already been made and Clause (xiii) of it provides thus: The Board of Directors shall include representative of shareholders on zonal or geographical basis in the proportion of number of shares as far as practicable. These representatives shall be elected in such manner as the Registrar may direct. Under the instructions issued by the Registrar for holding election of Directors of all the co -operative sugar mills in Punjab, it is provided that zonal lists of share -holders would be prepared and exhibited for a period of 10 days at the registered office of the mills and shareholders from these zones, which are seven in the case of the Society, shall elect one member each from the zone. In other words, special electorates on zonal basis have been created and only share -holders of a zone are entitled to elect a Director from that zone. Election of the board of Directors of the Society was to be held on 30th of November, 1968 according to the programme Annexure A, to which reference has already been made. It is not necessary to refer to the various dates in this programme apart from observing that various stages and processes culminating in the election on 30th of November, 1968, were set out commencing from a period of one week from 24th to 31st October, 1968, relating to printing of zonal lists of shareholders. The seven zones admittedly were carved by the Registrar on the basis of geographical contiguity of the various areas but the holding of shares do not appear to have been taken into consideration by the Registrar while creating these zones. An objection was raised in the petition, on which nothing turns now, that the publication was made without inviting objections and no due consideration was given to the wishes of the share -holders.;