Inconsistent provisions of a statute and a rule should be interpreted in a manner that gives effect to the legislative intent and protects the rights of the aggrieved party.

( 1 ) AS common question of law is involved in all the three appeals, we propose to dispose of all the three appeals by a common judgment and order.

( 2 ) IN M. A. T. No. 1493 and 1494 of 2004 appellants and the respondents are common while in M. A. T. No. 1790 of 2003 the Krishnagar city Co-operative Bank Ltd. and Ors. are the appellants and Sukumar Ghosh and Anr. are the respondents. The respondents in all the three appeals figured as writ petitioners before the learned Single Judge whose judgment and order is subject matter of challenge in all the three appeals.

( 3 ) THE writ petitioner respondents lost in the award case brought by the appellants and all the writ petitioners respondents thereafter preferred appeal challenging the award as contemplated in Section 136 of the West bengal Co-operative Societies Act, 1983 (hereinafter to be referred as the act ). Admittedly all such appeals were filed within 30 days after obtaining respective certified copy of the award and admittedly, all the three appeals were dismissed by the Tribunal holding inter alia that all the appeals were filed beyond the prescribed period of limitation.

( 4 ) THE aggrieved party thereafter preferred writ petitions contending inter alia that although under provision of Section 136 (1) of the Act read with item No. 11 of 3rd Schedule of the Act, an aggrieved party is supposed to prefer appeal within a month from communication of the award, as Rule 227 (4) (d) requires filing of the certified copy of the award along with the memorandum of appeal, the aggrieved party filed the respective appeals within 30 days from the supply of certified copy and hence, the Tribunal should have excluded the time taken for supply of certified copy in the matter of computation of the period of limitation and on that score, there was no delay in preferring the respective appeals and, therefore, the Tribunal was not justified in dismissing appeal on the point of limitation.

( 5 ) THE learned Single Judge in His judgment which was almost identical in all the three writ petitions observed that as there is apparent inconsistency between the provision of appeal appearing in Section 136 (1) of the Act and Rule 227 (4) (d), the Tribunal ought to have excluded the period spent for obtaining the certified copy when admittedly, the appellant had no role whatsoever in the matter of obtaining certified copy and when the appellant in all the three case applied for certified copy on the same date when the award was communicated to them. The learned Judge also explained the situation with reference to the provision of Rule 227 (4) (d) of the Rule that unless a certified copy is filed with memorandum of appeal, such memorandum of appeal cannot be accepted and hence, to give an effective meaning to the provision of both Section 136 (1) of the Act and to the provisions contained in Rule 227 (4) (d) the logical and reasonable interpretation would be that where appeal has been preferred within 30 days from obtaining the certified copy, it would be considered that the appeal has been filed well within the prescribed period under the Act notwithstanding the time mentioned in item no. 11 of the 3rd Schedule to the Act. The learned Judge,on such observation allowed the writ petitions and set aside the order of the Tribunal. The co-operative Society while preferring the present appeals has seriously challenged the observation of the learned Single Judge.

( 6 ) MR. Bhunia appearing for the appellants in the first two appeals submits with much force that it is not open to any Court to enlarge the scope of a statutory provision or to substitute any word in the existing Statute. Mr. Bhunia contends that under the provision of Section 136 (1) of the Act read with 3rd Schedule to the Act it is very much clear that the Statute prescribed the period of limitation 30 days from the date of communication of the award and it has been clarified in Rule 177 how such communication is to be effecte