Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
(Sl 3) vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors on 8 September, 2016
1 Court No. 32 A. S. T. 281 of 2016 08.09.2016
Sk. Mohammad Mobarak Ali & Ors.
(SL 3) Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors.
(S. Banerjee) Mr. Saibal Acharya, Ld. Advocate Mr. Subhendu Sengupta, Ld. Advocate ... for the petitioners Mr. Moloy Roy, Ld. Advocate ... for the State Let the affidavit-of-service filed in court today be kept with the record.
The petitioners are the members of a registered cooperative society in the district of Paschim Mednipur. The petitioners were served with a notice dated July 10, 2016 fixing August 29, 2016 as the date for election to the Board of Directors of the said cooperative society. On August 29, 2016 the said election did not take place. Subsequently by a corrigendum dated August 26, 2016, i.e., before the scheduled date of election the Assistant Returning Officer and Inspector of Cooperative Societies had issued a corrigendum stating that August 29, 2016 had been inadvertently printed, it should be read as September 9, 2016.
The petitioners have assailed the corrigendum alleging that there is no provision for postponing a meeting, the minimum notice period as mentioned in West Bengal Cooperative Societies Rules, 2011 has not been granted and sufficient details have not been given.
2The corrigendum is not a new notice. It makes it very clear that the earlier date was mistakenly printed in the notice and the said date was being corrected through the corrigendum. If a date is corrected by a corrigendum the minimum period of notice statutorily required to be given for holding an election of the Board of Directors is not violated in any manner. It cannot be that for correcting each printing mistake whenever a corrigendum has to be issued on each of such occasion 21 days' time has to be given. The appropriate authorities will not be able to hold the election if the position of law is pushed to such an absolute stand bordering on incapable of performance. The old notice was never scrapped. Merely the date has been changed and the reason for change has also been mentioned with significant clarity. I am also not very impressed with the submission of the petitioners that there is no provision of postponing of an election of the Board of Directors. The point taken by the petitioners that there is no provision for postponing a meeting has to be judged against the fact that there is no bar to that effect in the statute book as well. In case of any mistake in notifying the date of election the appropriate authority must definitely be taken to have the requisite power to rectify the mistake. Unless there is any bar to postpone a meeting in the statute the right inhering in an authority must be given effect to. After all, the election for the Board of Directors has to be held. After all, the tenure of the Board of Directors has expired. I fail to understand if in serving the notice intimating the election of the Board of Directors any inadvertent typographical mistake occurs why the authority cannot rectify the mistake. Mr. 3 Acharya's argument could have been accepted had the original notice been scrapped and a new notice had been issued. The notice remains intact, merely the date of election is altered. That apart, Mr. Acharya submitted that certain relevant things have not been disclosed in the notice. If that be so, one does not understand why the petitioner did not challenge the notice of motion at the relevant point of time. Now that the date of election has been intimated to the members of the Board of Directors, the petitioner cannot be allowed to take a turn around and complain that the notice does not contain certain details which are required to be given under the law. In that case they should have challenged the notice dated July 10, 2016 which they did not. The corrigendum is not expected to contain any details. It merely corrects the initial printing mistake. The corrigendum is meant for notifying a mistake occurring in the original notice. Here the date was mistakenly written.
In such view of it, I find no merit in the writ petition nor any reason to entertain the same.
The writ petition is dismissed.
There shall be no order as to costs.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance of requisite formalities.
(Dr. Sambuddha Chakrabarti, J.) 4