The main legal point established in the judgment is that the dissolution of a Managing Committee under Section 41(5) of the Bihar Co-operative Societies Act, 1935, results in the termination of the term of all members and office bearers of the committee, regardless of whether they have chosen to resign.

JYOTI SARAN, J.

1. In these batch of writ petitions whereas the petitioners in CWJC No. 9491 of 2015 are aggrieved by the order dated 05.05.2015/19.05.2015 of the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Bihar, Patna in Revision Case No. 13 of 2015 whereby the revision petition filed by the petitioners praying for a declaration for holding the election of the entire Managing Committee of Primary Agriculture Credit Cooperative Society (hereinafter referred to as the PACS), Shorampur, Block Phulwarisharif in the district of Patna has been rejected, the petitioners in the remaining set of writ petitions are aggrieved by the orders passed in the respective cases by the Registrar whereby the respective co-operative societies of which the petitioners are members / chairman have been dissolved in exercise of powers vested in the Registrar under Section 41(5) of the Bihar Co-operative Societies Act, 1935 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and the rules framed thereunder inter-alia on grounds of vacancies to the extent of more than half of the strength of the Managing Committee having been caused by virtue of resignation of the membership.

2. Since the issue raised in these set of writ petitions centre around the same issue regarding the extent of power vested in a Registrar under Section 41(5) of the Act to order for dissolution of the society where the vacancies caused by resignation exceed half the strength of the society and whether the provision saves any power with the Registrar of keeping such of the members/office bearers of the society out of such dissolution who have not chosen to resign, that these writ petitions have been heard analogous with the view to final disposal at the stage of admission itself.

3. Briefly enumerating, the facts involved in the respective writ petitions are as follows:-

4. As I have already pointed out, CWJC No. 9491 of 2015 has been filed by the six members of the Shorampur PACS who have resigned from the elected membership of the society comprising of 12 elected posts including that of a Chairman and one ex officio Secretary / Paid Manager. The election of the Managing Committee was held on 10.11.2014 and result was declared on 11.11.2014 electing the petitioners as members and respondent no. 6 as Chairman. The petitioners resigned from their elected membership which was received on 24.11.2014 by the Chairman. An application was filed before the Registrar with a prayer to dissolve the Managing Committee and for holding fresh election as the Managing Committee had been reduced to a minority, a copy of which is placed at Annexure-2 to the writ petition. On 22.12.2014 the District Cooperative Officer requested the Secretary, State Election Authority to hold election of the 11 members of the Managing Committee. Since the request by the District Co-operative Officer to hold election of the members of the Managing Committee before the State Election Authority did not include the post of the Chairman, hence the petitioners moved in revision before the Registrar, Co-operative Society in Revision Case No. 13 of 2015. The matter was heard and the orders were reserved on 05.5.2015 and on 19.5.2015 vide order present at Annexure-6 that the revision petition was disposed of by the Registrar Co-operative Societies finding no fault in the request of the District Co-operative Officer present in his letter dated 22.12.2014 whereunder a request had been made for holding election in respect of 11 members of the Managing Committee. On 20.5.2015 vide order bearing Memo No. 978 the District Co-operative Officer in exercise of powers vested under Section 41(5) (b) of the Act appointed Shri Amarendra Kumar, District Co-operative Extension Officer as Administrator for the society. However, in view of the order passed by the Registrar in the revision petition of the petitioners on 19.5.2015 that the order of appointment of an Administrator dated 20.5.2015 was recalled vide order bearing Memo No. 105 dated 04.6.2015. The p