JUDGMENT :

1. These Writ Petitions give rise to a common question raised on behalf of the Petitioners as regards orders passed by the Cooperative Tribunal under the Goa Co-operative Societies Act, 2001. The nomination papers of disputants who had approached the Tribunal were held to be wrongly rejected by the Returning Officer. As a consequence, the election of the petitioners stood set aside and directions were issued in each of these cases to the Registrar of the Co-operative Societies to conduct fresh elections. On the petitioners approaching this Court, interim orders were passed in their favour, as a consequence of which they have continued as elected members of the Board of Directors of the Sahakar Urban Credit Co-operative Society Ltd. Rule was granted in all these Petitions.

2. It is relevant that the Petitioners before this Court stood elected unopposed and, therefore, the question of rejection of nomination papers of the contesting Respondents in these Writ Petitions assumes significance. The said question revolves around the interpretation of bye-law 25(i) of the Bye-laws of the Respondent-Sahakar Urban Credit Co-operative Society Ltd. The nomination papers of the contesting Respondents were rejected by the Returning Officer on the ground that they did not comply with the requirement of the said bye-law, rendering them ineligible to contest in the election to the Board of Directors of the said Credit Co-operative Society. The Tribunal in the Judgments and orders impugned in these Writ Petitions held that the Returning officer was not justified in rejecting the nomination papers of the contesting Respondents. On this basis, the disputes filed by the contesting Respondents stood partly allowed and the Orders of the Returning officer were set aside. Consequently, the Orders declaring the Respondents elected unopposed also stood set aside and a direction was given for conducting fresh elections of the said Society.

3. The Petitioners, as well as the contesting Respondents, are members of the shareholder Societies of the aforesaid Respondent-Credit Co-operative Society. They sought to contest election to the Board of Directors of the said Credit Co-operative Society and hence filed nomination papers for the same. In terms of the election program, the Returning Officer took up the scrutiny of the nomination papers of the said candidates. The nomination papers of the contesting Respondents were rejected on the ground that they did not satisfy the requirement of bye-law 25(i) of the Credit Cooperative Society and hence they were ineligible to contest the elections.

4. Aggrieved by the rejection of their nomination papers, the contesting Respondents filed disputes before the aforesaid Cooperative Tribunal under Section 83 of the said Act. As noted above, the disputes were partly allowed by holding that the nomination papers could not have been rejected and that there was sufficient compliance with the aforesaid bye-law on the part of the contesting Respondents.

5. Mr. G. Panandikar, learned Counsel appearing for the Petitioners in these Writ Petitions, submitted that the Tribunal in the present case committed a grave error in reading and interpreting the bye-law 25(i) of the said Bye-laws while ignoring the relevant statutory provisions of the aforesaid Act. It was submitted that the Order of the Tribunal was rendered perverse for the reason that the specific contentions raised on behalf of the Petitioners in the context of the aforesaid statutory provisions were recorded in the impugned Orders, but they were not dealt with by the Tribunal. It was submitted that Section 60(3)(c) of the said Act specifically provided that, for a person to be eligible for being chosen as a member of the Board of Directors of a Society like the Respondent-Credit Co-operative Society, he was required to have availed service for three years in the preceding period of five years of the Society to a minimum level as specified in the Bye-laws. It was sub