1.Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith.

2. With consent of learned counsel for the parties the matter is taken up for final hearing and disposal of immediately.

3. The petitioners are the members of the Managing Committee of respondent No.3 Punjabrao Deshmukh Urban 5 Cooperative Bank Limited Amravati. Respondent No.4 was previously an employee of the State Bank and prosecution has been launched against him by the bank for certain offences. Respondent No. 4, who is also share holder and member of the Bank, made an application to the Commissioner of Registrar Cooperative Societies alleging that Annual General Meeting of the said Society was held on 14.08.2005 and prior to that the Auditor's Report about accounts of 2004-05 was already in receipt but that report was not placed before the Annual General Meeting of the Society and thus there was violation of provisions of Section 75(4) of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act. This is an offence under Section 146(f) punishable under Section 147(f) of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act. Besides that he alleged that the petitioners as members of the Managing Committee had failed to maintain proper accounts for the year 2004-05. According to him the figure of the account pertaining to loan etc. disclosed in the statement of account placed before the Annual General Meeting were at variance with the report of the Auditor in respect of the same. He wanted to prosecute the petitioners under 6 Section 147(f) and (k) and for that purpose no prosecution could be launched under the said Section except with the previous sanction of the Registrar as provided under Section 148(3) of the Act. Therefore, respondent No.4 moved the Registrar of the Cooperative Societies to accord sanction for the said purpose. By order dated 14.09.2006 the Cooperative Commissioner of Registrar of Cooperative Societies accorded sanction as prayed by respondent No.4 for prosecution of the petitioners. That order was challenged under Section 154 of the Act before the Government and the Minister of Cooperative rejected that revision, hence this petition.

4. Admitted fact is that after the respondent No.4 had made an application to the Registrar Cooperative Societies for sanction, that application was pending for a long time and no decision was taken . Therefore, the respondent No.4 had filed Writ petition No. 1025 of 2006. By order dated 08.03.2006 in the said Writ Petition this Court had directed the Registrar Cooperative Societies to decide that application within 6 weeks from the receipt of the said order It appears that the Registrar did not decide the application within 6 weeks after receipt of the order from the Court and therefore respondent No.4 also moved a Contempt Petition No. 181 of 2006 against the Registrar. Notice was issued in that contempt petition. However, before any further action could be taken, the Registrar passed the impugned order dated 14.09.2006 and in the result that contempt petition came to be disposed of.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that Registrar Cooperative Societies did not follow the procedure laid down in law and did not give proper opportunity to the petitioner to explain their conduct before according sanction possibly because of the pressure of notice in the contempt petition. Of course this contention has been denied by the learned AGP on behalf of the Registrar.

6. The impugned order reveals that the accounts of the respondent No.3 bank were audited by Chhangani and Haque Chartered Accountants for the year 2004-05. The Chartered Accountants prepared the report on 14.07.2005 but it was actually received by the Managing Committee on 09.08.2005. Before that on 29.07.2005 the Managing Committee had issued notice of Annual General Meeting to be held on 14.08.2005. Thus the Auditors' Report was received about 5 days before