A meeting, for the purpose of Bye-law 22, must be a validly constituted meeting, which requires factors such as quorum, notice, eligibility of attendees, and the business to be transacted to be satisfied.

( 1 ) THIS appeal is from the judgment of our learned brother Chinappa Reddy, J. , given in Writ Petition 1441 of 1972 on 7-7-1972, whereby the learned Judge dismissed the Writ Petition.

( 2 ) THE facts in outline are : The Ongole Co-operative Bank Ltd. , has a Board of Directors, It consists of 7 Directors. The petitioner was elected to the Board of Directors in January, 1971. The term of office of a Director is three years. Accordingly , he would have normally continued till the end of December, 1974.

( 3 ) ON 29-3-1972, however, the petitioner was served with a communication from the President of the Ongole Co-operative Bank Ltd. , that he has ceased to be a Director of the Bank under bye-law 22 on account of his having absented himself from three consecutive meetings of the Board of Directors held on 6-1-1972, 14-2-1972 and 19-2-1972. It is that communication which gave rise to the writ petition.

( 4 ) IT was contended before the learned single Judge by the petitioner that bye-law 22 was ultra vires as it offended Section 21-B of the Co-operative Societies Act and Rule 24 (3) of the Rules made thereunder. The argument was that the words "ipso facto" appearing in the impugned by-law go contrary to Section 21-B. The learned Judge rejected this contention holding that the position would be the same even without the words "ipso facto". Even under Section 21-B , a member automatically ceases to be a member if he fails to attend three consecutive meetings of the Board of Directors. It was next contended before him that the meeting said to have been held on 14-2-1972 was not a meeting in the eye of law as there was no quorum and the meeting had to be adjourned. The learned Judge rejected this contention also holding that the only result of absence of any prescribed quorum is that the members would not be able to transact any business, but that would not mean that there was no meeting at all. Although thus on 14-2-1972 three directors alone were present which number could not constitute a quorum, it was held by the learned Judge that it was nevertheless a meeting.

( 5 ) THE last submission before the learned Judge was that on 24-1-1972 , certain decisions were taken by the committee by circulation and inasmuch as the petitioner has given his opinion, he shall be deemed to have been present at the meeting on 24-1-1972. The learned Judge rejected the contention that any opinion got by circulation would not mean that it was taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors. As a result, the writ petition was dismissed.

( 6 ) IN this writ appeal, the only question which was pressed was that the presence of three members on 14-2-1972 would not constitute a meeting within the meaning of bye-law 22 and as a result, the petitioners absence at that meeting should not be computed for the purpose of finding out whether he has absented himself from attending three consecutive meetings of the Board of Directors.

( 7 ) IT was not in doubt that for the meeting of 14-2-1972, a notice was given on 7-2-1972 with 8 items on the agenda.

( 8 ) ON 14-2-1972, the President , Vice President and one of the Directors Sri R. Hanumantha Rao were present. The rest of the four directors did not attend the meeting. From the proceedings of the meeting, it appears that the President wrote "only three attended" and below it , he again wrote "adjourned for want of quorum" and signed the same.

( 9 ) THE next meeting was held on 19-2-1972. A notice of that meeting was given on 16-2-1972. The notice does not refer to the proposed meeting as adjourned meeting as was decided in the proceedings of 14-2-1972 referred to above. Apart from the 8 items which appear on the agenda in the notice of 7-2-72 for being considered at the meeting of 14-2-1972 a fresh item was added to the agenda. That related to the authorisation of Co-operative Sub-Registrar Secretary to sign the returns.

( 10 ) THE proceedings of the meeting of 19-2-1972 also do not indicate that that meet