Bombay High Court
Prabhu Shriram Sahakari Dudh Vyawasaik ... vs The State Of Maharashtra And Others on 18 September, 1998
Equivalent citations: 1999(3)BOMCR20, 1999(1)MHLJ619
Author: R.J. Kochar
Bench: R.J. Kochar
ORDER R.J. Kochar, J.
1. Rule. By consent rule made returnable forthwith.
2. The petitioner society has filed the present petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India read with Articles 14, 19(1)(c)(g) to challenge the permission dated 3-10-1996 granted to a proposed co-operative society i.e. the respondent No. 3. The petitioner society was registered under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act on 26-3-93. The society's functioning is in the village Dahigaon having population of 1147 of 197 families. The petitioner society contends that it is collecting milk approximately 279 litres from the village. The petitioner has further stated that there is another society which is also collecting milk on an average 230 Litres. This latter society is also a proposed society from the said village. According to the petitioner.
the total availability of the milk in the village is approximately 630 litres. On the basis of the Government Resolution dated 2-4-1993, there is no-scope for registering the third society. According to the petitioner, permission to the third proposed society cannot be granted as the criteria prescribed in the said Government Resolution for collection of milk are not satisfied. The petitioner society contends that the decision to grant such permission to the respondent No. 3 is not only beyond the scope of the Government Resolution dated 2-4-93 but, is mala fide and under the political pressure from the local M.L.A. respondent No. 4 herein. According to the petitioner the conditions prescribed in the Government Resolution were relaxed for collection of the milk. The petitioner had initially challenged the order dated 3rd October, 1996 granting permission to the respondent No. 3 to open Bank Account and start milk collection. It appears that after the writ petition was filed, the respondent No. 3 was granted registration on 19-10-1996 by the respondent No. 2. The petitioner has challenged by amendment, the decision of the respondent No. 2 the Assistant Registrar to grant registration to the respondent No. 3 society on 19-10-1996. The petitioner has amended petition after leave granted by this Court. The petitioner challenged both these decisions of the Assistant Registrar i.e. the order dated 3rd October, 96 granting permission to the respondent No. 3 society to open Bank account and collect milk and also the decision dated 19-10-1996 to register the respondent No. 3 society under the provisions of the Act. The petitioner also challenged the order dated 18-3-1996 passed by the respondent No. 5 the Minister for State relaxing the conditions for the respondent No. 3 society for collection of milk. According to the petitioner, the Minister had no powers tot relax the miik collection conditions prescribed in the Government Resolution dated 2-4-93 and subsequently, modified by another Government Resolution dated 29-4-19995. The main thrust of the petitioner's opposition to the registration of the respondent No. 3 society in the village is that of political pressure and influence, in particular the local M.L.A. respondent No. 4. The petitioner has, therefore, based its case that in spite of there being no scope for registration of third society, the authorities have registered the third society for collection of milk solely for the extraneous reasons i.e political pressure.
3. The main contesting society i.e. respondent No. 3 has submitted that the petitioner society and the another proposed society Le, Sitamai Co-operative Society are hand-in-gloves with each other and there is only difference in the name. The second proposed society is nominal to prevent a third society to come in the village. On behalf of the respondent No. 3 it is further submitted that they are collecting adequate milk and the petitioner society will not be adversely affected at all. The respondent No. 3 has naturally supported the decisions of the authorities including the decision of the Minister who have relaxed the milk collection condition. The respondent No. 3 society has further submitted that looking at the present collection of the milk as recorded by the Federation, Ahmednagar Zilla Sahakari Doodh Vyavsaik Sangh, the third society was rightly registered and that under section 7 the State Government has power to exempt the society from any conditions. It is also submitted that the Minister, the Assistant Registrar as well as Registrar all have considered the report of the Milk Inspector and all other material from record and, there is nothing objectionable in the order of the authorities to register the respondent No. 3 society and also to grant permission to it to open Bank Account and collect milk. Apart from the merits, the respondent No. 3 has taken a serious exception to the maintainability of the very writ petition on the ground of alternative remedy available under sections 152 and 154 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960. According to the learned advocate for the respondent No. 3 all the impugned orders dated 3rd October, 96 passed by the Assistant Registrar, the order dated 18-10-1996 passed by the Minister and the order dated 19-10-1996 passed by the Assistant Registrar granting registration to the respondent No. 3 can be challenged under sections 152 and 154 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act and since there is statutory alternative remedy provided for, the present writ petition is not maintainable. It is also submitted that the respondent No. 3 society has been collecting milk from the village since 23-5-1996 while the petition is filed on 9-10-1996 and, therefore, it suffers from delay. Pursuant to the order dated 13-3-1996 passed by the Honourable Minister to relax the conditions of milk collection, the respondent No. 3 society had started collection of milk. The petitioner had not challenged the said order and the respondent No. 3 had already started collection of milk on a large scale successfully. To stop the functioning of respondent No. 3 society after such a long period is not proper, contends the learned advocate for the respondent No. 3. It is further submitted on behalf of the respondent No. 3 that even at present they are collecting milk on a large scale without adversely affecting the petitioner society or its other proposed Seetamai Society. It is, therefore, submitted on behalf of the respondent No. 3 society that the present petition is filed to have its own monopoly in the village and to thwart the growth of the village and progress and prosperity of the villagers. According to third respondent , there is lot of scope and vacuum for the functioning of the respondent No. 3 society.
4. Section 4 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 permits registration of a society having its objects, the promotion of economic interest or general welfare of its members or of the public in accordance with the co-operative principles or a society established with the object or facilitating the operations of any such society. Proviso to section 4 prohibits registration of any society if it is likely to be economically unsound or if the registration of such a society might have an adverse effect on development of the co-operative movement or it may be contrary to the policy directives which the State Government may from time to time issues. It is, therefore, clear from the bare reading of section 4 that the rule is to promote the growth of the cooperative movement in public interest and the exception is if such a registration of the society would be economically unsound and would have adverse effect on the co-operative movement and the public interest. There is no restriction in the said section for registration on the number of societies to be registered. The only principle which is to be observed by the authorities is that public interest should be safeguarded by considering the economical interest and general welfare of the members of the society and of the public at large. It is implicit in the section that co-operative principles must be enhanced and not any monopolistic system is to be encouraged. Section 6 prescribes conditions of registration which a proposed society has to satisfy. Section 8 prescribes for application for registration while section 9 authorises the Registrar to grant registration to a proposed co-operative society if it satisfies the conditions and criteria prescribed under the Act. The orders passed by the Registrar under section 9 of the Act to the register or not to register a co-operative society are challengeable under section 152 of the Act by filing an appeal. Section 152 provides for appeals against the orders or decisions under sections 4, 9 etc. (we are concerned with these two sections). Full-fledged appellate authorities are prescribed and they are armed with the regular powers of appellate forums. A complete hierarchy is also given under the said section. The decisions or orders or awards passed are treated as final subject to the provisions for revision in the Act. Similarly, section 154 has vested the State Government with the revisionary powers. Even in this section, minute hierarchy is created with the powers.
5. In the present case, the petitioner society is challenging the orders of the authorities passed under sections 4, 8 and 9 of the Act. All these orders are based on bare and simple questions of facts and figures i.e. the collection of milk by the different societies. In the aforesaid circumstances, any party which is aggrieved by any order or decision under the aforesaid section has to resort to the appeal remedy as appellate authority can go into all the questions of facts and figures. It is not the function of High Court to consider that how much milk is collected by which society and what is the scope in the village. It cannot be said that merely because the local M.L.A. in the interest of the local village people, moves in the matter, the decisions of the authorities become tainted with mala fides and the orders of the authorities become mala fide. If the local M.L.A. does not espouse the cause of his constituency, no one else would be in a better position to do so. I do not find anything wrong in the respondent No. 4 local M.L.A. to have moved in the matter and to have represented the cause of the villagers for registration of third society in the village. It is for the local M.L.A. to have assessed the situation in the village and to have represented the economic interest of the villagers before the registering authorities. It is for the local M.L.A. to consider the welfare of the people of the village. He has to represent and attend the local causes and grievances of the people. In fact, it is his bounden duty to look after the interest of the villagers. The High Court exercising extraordinary jurisdiction under the Constitution cannot go into all these minute local questions of the people. I do not find that either local M.L.A. or the registering authorities or the Minister was actuated with any legal malice or other capricious reasons to grant registration to the respondent No. 3 society. To resolve the local conflicts and to find amicable solutions for the local problems particularly, in the co-operative society matters, the legislature has wisely provided for internal machinery by way of providing of appeals and revisions in the matters of such problems which are to be considered by those very persons who are fully acquainted with the ground realities of the villages. It is, therefore, not permissible for any aggrieved party to by-pass appeal and revisional provisions as they are the more efficacious remedies for the peculiar problems of the co-operative movement. Since the petitioner has not availed of the alternative and equally efficacious remedy and has rushed to file present petition purportedly under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, according to me, the writ petition deserves to be rejected on this ground alone. I am fully supported in this respect by a decision of Supreme Court between Miss Maneck Custodji Surjarji v. Sarafazali Nawabali Mirza, The Supreme Court observed as under :
"The jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution is an extraordinary jurisdiction which is to be exercised sparingly and in appropriate cases and it is not to be exercised as if it were an appellate jurisdiction or as if it gave unfettered and unrestricted power to the High Court to do whatever it liked."
6. Even otherwise, I do not find any illegality or perversity in the impugned orders of the authorities. The authorities have considered the facts and figures before them and they have come to their own conclusions which cannot be gone into by the High Court in its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
The writ petition is, therefore, dismissed. No order as to costs.
7. Writ Petition dismissed.