Madhya Pradesh High Court
Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhuddeshiya ... vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 12 February, 2020
Author: Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia
Bench: Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia
1 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others Gwalior, Dated :12/02/2020 Shri Vivek Jain, Advocate for petitioner. Shri P.S. Raghuvanshi, Government Advocate for State. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed against the order dated 28/1/2020, by which the fair price shop situated in village Daulatpur having Code No.105046, which was allotted to the petitioner has been cancelled on the ground that the petitioner society is not entitled to run the shop.
2. It is submitted by the counsel for the petitioner that although the order under challenge is an appealable order, but since it has been issued under the instructions of the Collector, Bhind, therefore, the appeal to the Collector, Bhind would not be an efficacious remedy. It is further submitted that the petitioner society has been registered as a multipurpose society under the M.P. Cooperative Societies Act (in short "the Act") and under Section 16 of the Act, the petitioner is entitled to run the fair price shop, however, by the impugned order, the allotment has been cancelled. It is further submitted that the petitioner has filed the by-laws which clearly shows that it was rightly registered as a multipurpose society. The fair price shop was allotted to the petitioner in the year 2000 and as per the PDS Control Order, 2015 the schedule II has been inserted, according to which, Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR MISHRA Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10 2 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others only specified categories of the societies can be allotted the fair price shop. Thus, it is claimed that the cancellation of the allotment is contrary to law.
3. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner.
4. Section 10 of the Act reads as under:-
"10. Classification of Societies.-[(1) The Registrar shall classify all societies under one or more of the following heads, namely:-
(i) Consumer's Society;
(ii) Farming Society;
[x x x]
(v) Housing Society;
(vi) Marketing Society;
(vii) Multipurpose Society;
(viii) Producers Society;
(ix) Processing Society;
(x) Resource Society;
(xi) General Society;
[(xii) Industrial Society.] Provided that a society formed with the object of facilitating the operations of any particular class of societies shall be classified as a society of that class].
[(1-a) The Registrar may further classify the societies falling under any of the heads specified in sub-section (1) under the following heads, namely;
(a) Apex Society;
(b) Central Society;
(ba) Federal Society;
(c) Primary Society.] Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR MISHRA Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10 3 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others (2) The Registrar for reasons to be recorded in writing may alter the classification of any society from one head to another.
(3) The decision of the Registrar in respect of classification of societies shall be final."
5. The Registrar by order dated 13/5/1976 has classified the various societies under various heads including the multipurpose society, which reads as under:-
"7. Multipurpose Society:-
(1) Adivasi Multipurpose Society. (2) Multipurpose Society.
(3) Tribal Co-operative Department
Fedral."
6. The basic object and reasons for enactment of the Act is to organise, develop and to promote voluntary formation, autonomous functioning and professional management of Co-operatives as democratic instruments and people's institution based on self help and mutual aid and for curbing exploitation and ensuring socio-
economic development of people with particular emphasis on weaker sections of society. In order to have one uniform law for the whole State and with a view to strengthening and developing the co- operative movement and to extend the assistance by the State including state partnership, wherever necessary, it has been felt that a new law on Co-operation may be enacted and accordingly, the M.P. Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 has come into force. Various Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR MISHRA Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10 4 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others amendments were carried out in the Act for the effective implementation of the Act.
7. The words " Multi-purpose Society" have been defined under Section 2 (s) of the Act, which reads as under:-
"(s) "Multi-purpose Society" means a society which includes amongst its objects any of the primary objects specified in any two or more of the clauses (g), (n), (v) and (y);
(s-i) "National Bank" means the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development established under Section 3 of the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development Act, 198l (No.61 of 1981);]"
Section 2 (g), (n), (v) and (y) read as under:-
"(g) "Consumers' Society" means a society formed with the object of obtaining or producing and processing and distributing goods to or performing other services for its members, as well as for other customers and dividing among its members and customers in a proportion as may be laid down in the bye-laws of such society, the profits accruing from such supply, production, processing and distribution;
[(g-i) "delegate" means a person elected by a group of individual members to represent them in the general body of the society in accordance with the bye-laws of the society;] [(g-ii) "Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation" means the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation established under the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation Act, 1961 (No.47 of 1961);] [(n) "Housing Society" means a society, the object of which is to provide its members plot for housing, including low density housing, dwelling Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR MISHRA Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10 5 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others houses or flats and/or if plots, the houses or flats are already acquired, to provide common amenities and services including housing finance to its members through mutual aid in accordance with the cooperative principles;] [(n-i) 'Industrial Society' means a Society formed with the objects of promoting development of weavers, carpenters, metal workers, shoe makers or any other Society which aims at producing finished goods from raw materials of any kind.]
(v) "Producers' Society" means a society formed with the object of producing and disposing of goods as a collective property of its members and includes a society formed with the object of the collective disposal of the labour of its members;
(y) "Resource Society" means a society formed with the object of obtaining for its members the credit, goods or services required by them and includes a service society and a primary credit society;
(y-i) "Returning Officer'' means a person appointed or approved by the Registrar [State Co- Operative Election Authority[ by general or special order for performing the duties of a Returning Officer under this Act or the rules made thereunder and includes an officer subordinate to the Returning Officer nominated in writing by him to perform certain duties of Returning Officer and to assist him;] (y-ii) "Scheduled area" means the area which has been declared under the Scheduled Area (State of Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa) Order, 1977."
8. From the plain reading of Sections 2(g), (n), (s), (v) and (y) of Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR MISHRA Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10 6 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others the Act, it is clear that the societies are formed with an object to achieve the goal. The allegations against the petitioner is that it is not competent to run the fair price shop, as provided under schedule II, clause 8 of MP PDS Control Order. The petitioner has filed the copy of the by-laws to show the purpose for which the society was constituted, however, the petitioner has not uttered a single word to point out as to whether the petitioner society was actually working in the fields as mentioned in the by-laws or it was constituted just for the purpose of running the fair price shop. It appears that the petitioner society was registered on 11/8/1999 and the fair price shop was allotted by order dated 12/7/2000. Thus, under these circumstances, it was incumbent upon the petitioner to prima facie plead and prove that apart from running the fair price shop, the society was also effectively working for achieving the targets / objects mentioned in the by-laws. The entire petition is completely silent. Under the circumstances, unless and until the petitioner prima facie proves that the society was actually constituted for achieving the objects mentioned in the by-laws, it would be very difficult for this Court to hold that the petitioner was in fact a multi-purpose society.
9. Since various disputed questions of facts are involved, which cannot be decided by this Court, accordingly, this petition is Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR MISHRA Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10 7 THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH Writ Petition No.3694/2020 Mahila Kaleen Udyog Bhudeshiya Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit, Daulatpur Vs. The State of M.P. and others dismissed with liberty to the petitioner that it may avail any other effective remedy, which is available to it.
(G.S. Ahluwalia)
Arun* Judge
Digitally signed by ARUN KUMAR
MISHRA
Date: 18/02/2020 15:00:10