The Act overrides any decision of the co-operative society, and disputes must be adjudicated following the procedures laid down in the Rules of 2011.

JUDGMENT :

Apurba Sinha Ray, J.

1. Briefly, the allegation against the respondent no. 9, a member of the Bengal Pack –Co-operative Housing Society is that he has converted his car-parking space into a shop after misusing his position as the Secretary of the Society, unauthorizedly and illegally. To such allegation the respondent no. 9 replied that by a majority decision in the meeting of the said co-operative society, he was allowed to convert his car-parking space into a commercial space on the basis of a circular being no. 2287-UD/O/M/HID/5M-36/2014 of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs and further necessary approval from New Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) was taken and plan was sanctioned showing his car-parking space as shop. The relevant deed and plan show the portion of the car-parking space of the respondent no. 9 as a shop. Therefore, the respondent no. 9 did not commit any illegality in running his shop from the relevant space.

2. The appellants/writ petitioners contend that the majority decision in the meeting of a co-operative society cannot override the law of the land. By section 154 of West Bengal Co-operative Societies Act, 2006, it has been laid down that the said Act shall have overriding effect over all other Acts, or contracts which are in conflict with the provisions of the Act of 2006. Moreover, the definition of ‘housing cooperative society’ shows [Sec 4 (36)] the primary object for such society is to provide to its members with residential amenities, and not for any commercial purpose. Therefore, when the Act itself lays down the primary object of a housing co-operative society in an unambiguous manner, no circular of any government body can byepass the same.

3. Another point that has been argued from the side of the appellants is that the illegal and unauthorized acts of the respondent no. 9 for converting his car-parking space into a commercial space have been well established since the respondent no. 3, being the Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies (RTAH Cell), enquired and found that the respondent no. 9 has committed the illegality. But even after such finding of the Registrar of Co-operative Societies, the concerned authorities remained idle and did not take any step to restore the relevant space to a car-parking space, and as such for commanding the concerned authorities accordingly, the writ petition was filed but the writ court without going into the question of implementation of the findings of the respondent no. 4 totally misdirected the conclusion and directed the parties to agitate the issues before the Registrar of Cooperative Societies in terms of Section 102 of the West Bengal Cooperative Societies Act.

4. Therefore, from the argument of the Learned Counsel of the appellants it appears that the appellants filed the writ petition only to implement the decision of the Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies (RTAH Cell) since, according to them, the dispute has already been adjudicated and the result of such decision has also been declared, and, therefore, the direction of the writ court to re-agitate the ‘dispute’ once again as per Section 102 of Act of 2006 is unnecessary and without any legal basis. The writ petition was filed only to implement the decision of the concerned authority and nothing more than that.

Court’s View:-

5. Needless to mention, power and scope of the appellate forum are very limited. The law empowers the Appellate Court to interdict the decision of the writ court when not merely a wrong decision is rendered by the said court but only when the decision is clearly wrong.

6. According to the appellants, the dispute between the parties has already been adjudicated on the basis of clear admission and other materials, and therefore, there is no scope for the writ court to direct the parties to refer the dispute once again to the Registrar Co-operative Societies. So, the appellants, time and again, hammered that there was a ‘dispute’ and that has been ‘adjudicate