Merger of cooperative banks does not violate statutory regulations when properly sanctioned; the petitioner acted out of self-interest and lacking standing.

JUDGMENT

Vipin Sanghi, J. (Oral)--We have heard Mr. Rakesh Kumar Khanna, learned senior counsel for the petitioners as well as Mr. Gopal Jain, learned senior counsel for respondent no. 2/Reserve Bank of India ("RBI") and the learned counsel for respondent nos. 3 & 4 i.e., The Vaish Cooperative Commercial Bank Ltd and The Panipat Urban Cooperative Bank Ltd., respectively, and proceed to dispose of the present petition and pending applications.

2. The present writ petition has been preferred by the Delhi Urban Cooperative Bank Federation, claiming to be a federation of co-operative banks in Delhi, registered under the Delhi Co-operative Societies Act, 2003 (`the Act' for short). The name and address of petitioner No.1 reads as follows:

"Delhi Urban Cooperative Banks Federation,

C/o Janata Cooperative Bank Ltd.,

32, Netaji Subhash Marg,

Darya Ganj,

New Delhi-110 002

Through its General Secretary."

3. When the writ petition was initially filed, two individuals namely Shri Pradeep Kumar and Shri Satya Dev, were also impleaded as petitioners. However, during the pendency of the writ petition, these petitioners - being petitioner nos. 2 & 3, chose to withdraw their names from the writ petition and therefore, the writ petition is being pursued by the surviving petitioner i.e. Delhi Urban Cooperative Bank Federation.

4. The petitioner seeks setting aside of letter dated 18.04.2018 issued by the respondent No. 2/RBI, whereby the proposed merger of respondent No.3/Vaish Cooperative Commercial Bank Ltd., a co-operative bank registered under the Delhi Co-operative Societies Act, with respondent No. 4/Panipat Urban Cooperative Bank Ltd., a multi-state co-operative society has been sanctioned by the RBI. It is claimed by the petitioner that this proposed merger is in violation of the provisions of the BANKING REGULATIONS ACT , 1949 and the guidelines issued by the RBI on 02.02.2005 for merger of cooperative banks. The petitioner also seeks a direction for declaration of the letter dated 28.06.2018 issued by the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Delhi granting its' no objection to the proposed merger of respondent Nos. 3 with 4 as being illegal and void-ab-initio, being against the provisions of Delhi Cooperative Societies Act, 2003 and Delhi Cooperative Societies Rules, 2007.

5. On 19.06.2019, this Court, while issuing notice in the writ petition, restrained the respondents from taking any step pursuant to the letter dated 31.05.2019, which is a communication of respondent No. 4 to the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Delhi, requesting it to issue an order for merger of respondent No.3 with respondent No.4, by accepting the cut off date 01.07.2019 to enable it to get the RBI license transferred in its name, so as to start the banking operations with effect from 01.07.2019. The result of this interim order dated 19.06.2019 has been that the process of merger of respondent No. 3 with respondent No. 4 has been stalled ever since. In this light, two applications being CM APPL. 28528/2019 & CM APPL. 43545/2019 filed by respondent no. 3, seeking vacation of the interim orders are also pending consideration. We have, therefore, taken up the writ petition itself for hearing today.

6. The submission of Mr. Khanna, learned senior counsel for the petitioner, is that the petitioner is a federation of co-operative banks in Delhi and is recognized both by the Registrar, Co-operative Societies Delhi and the RBI. It is submitted that the petitioner federation was essentially constituted to assist the RBI in taking decisions with regard to merger of one co-operative bank with another in Delhi. In this regard, the petitioner has submitted in Para 8 of its additional affidavit dated 18.11.2020, to the following effect:

"8. That the Delhi Urban Cooperative Banks Federation has been constituted with one of its object to provide a common forum for discussing technical and practical problems relating to Urban Cooperative Banks in Delhi and allied problems of