( 1 ) THE appellant had filed Special Civil Suit No. 16 of 1971 for recovering Rs. 1,89,630. 93 from the respondents contending that the plaintiff Co-operative Society was producing salt and was selling it. The defendants had agreed to purchase the salt from the plaintiff on 7-4-64 at the rate agreed between the parties. As there was breach of contract between the parties and also the defendants were not paying the remaining price of the goods, the plaintiff had filed the aforesaid suit for recovery of the amount as stated in the plaint.

( 2 ) IN the plaint itself the plaintiff has averred that previously they were bonafide prosecuting proceeding before the Board of Nominees under the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act, 1961. Before the Registrar they had filed Lavadi Suit No. A. B. N. 194 of 1965 for this very purpose. Finally the said proceedings were terminated by the judgment of the Gujarat High Court on 29th September, 70 wherein it was held that the dispute being between a Co-operative Society and a third party, the provision giving exclusive jurisdiction to the authority constituted under the Act is not applicable and the authority has no jurisdiction to deal with it. Subsequently therefore they have filed the aforesaid suit before the Court on 12th April 1971. The suit was dismissed by the learned Judge on a preliminary issue that it was barred by the period of limitation and he held that the provisions of Section 14 of the Limitation Act would not be applicable in the present case as the Registrars Nominee was not a Court and Section 14 of the Limitation Act was applicable only to the proceedings before the Court. Against this judgment and decree the plaintiff has preferred the aforesaid appeal.

( 3 ) IN our opinion, whether Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 would be applicable or not to the present proceedings is directly covered by the judgment of the Division Bench of this High Court in the case of M. G. Patel and Co. v. Alka Co-operative Housing Society Ltd. , reported in 1981 Gujarat Law Herald 311, wherein the Court in paragraph 15 (sic) (32) has held as under:"mr. Oza had then urged that both the suits were barred by limitation and Section 14 of the Indian Limitation Act did not intervene to save their being dismissed as time-barred. Mr. Oza urged that the Registrar acting under Section 96 of the Co-operative Societies Act, is not a Court and, therefore, the time spent by these plaintiffs in prosecuting their remedy before the Registrar cannot be excluded by resource to Section 14 of the Indian Limitation Act. We do not agree. What Section 14 requires is that the plaintiff must be prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding, whether in a court of first instance or of appeal or revision, against the defendant. The proceedings prosecuted by the plaintiff before the Registrars Nominee was a civil proceeding. They do not say that the civil proceedings must have been prosecuted in a court as such. All that Section 14 says is that a civil proceeding, whether it is prosecuted in the original forum or in appellate or revisional forum, is a proceeding, the time taken to prosecute which, will be excluded from computing the period of limitation. "in view of this clear pronouncement by the Division Bench of his Court, the point does not require any further discussion. Therefore, on this short ground the appeal requires to be allowed.

( 4 ) HOWEVER, the learned advocate for the respondents submitted that the proceedings before the Registrars Nominee under the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act cannot be said to be civil proceedings and before the court as contemplated under Section 14 of the Limitation Act. In our opinion, this contention of the learned advocate is of no substance in view of the aforesaid decision.

( 5 ) FURTHER, under the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act the Registrar is empowered to decide any dispute touching the constitution, management or business of a society as conte