An appellant challenging membership eligibility must pursue resolution under specific provisions of the Cooperative Societies Act, not through general dispute mechanisms.

JUDGMENT :

(Aniruddha P. Mayee, J.)

1. The present Letters Patent Appeal impugns the judgment and order dated 10.7.2023 in Special Civil Application No.11197 of 2022. The petitioner and the respondent Nos.1 to 13 are the Cooperative Societies duly registered under the Gujarat Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 [“Act of 1961” for short]. The respondent societies are engaged in sale and purchase of agricultural products. They applied to become the members of the respondent No.16 – Gujarat State Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited [“Federation” for short]. The respondent No.16 - Federation having found the petitioner societies to be qualified, enrolled them as their members on 25.3.2021. That the respondent No.16 - Federation being an apex level society which is a specified society under Section 74 (C) of the Act of 1961, elections were declared to be conducted as the term of the Managing Committee of the said Federation was expiring in July 2022. Accordingly, a voters list came to be prepared by the respondent No.16 - Federation and it forwarded the same to the Election Officer for preparation of the final voters list. The preliminary voters list came to be published on 16.5.2022 and after hearing the objections, the final voters list was published on 20.5.2022. Accordingly, the election programme came to be declared on 23.5.2022 and the nominations were to be filed from 25.5.2022 till 1.6.2022. The scrutiny of nomination was to be held on 3.6.2022 and the final list of contesting candidates came to be declared on 8.6.2022. The voting was to be held on 19.6.2022.

2. That a day prior to the date of voting i.e. on 18.6.2022, the appellant herein filed Lavad Suit Nos.133 of 2022 and 134 of 2022 before the learned Board of Nominees. That the interim prayer was to restrain the respondent Nos.1 to 13 from functioning as the members of the respondent No.16 - Federation. That by order dated 18.6.2022, the Board of Nominees – respondent No.14 herein passed an order restraining the respondent Nos.1 to 13 societies to exercise any right of membership in the respondent No.16 - Federation and as a consequence thereof, the respondent Nos.1 to 13 came to be denied their voting right in the election held on 19.6.2022. As soon as the respondent cooperative societies were restrained from voting, they immediately preferred Special Civil Application No.11197 of 2022 in this Court and being a holiday, sought permission to circulate the petition urgently. In the meanwhile, the Election Officer declared the results of the election and the respondent Nos.17 came to be elected in the election.

3. That by order dated 9.9.2022, the learned Board of Nominees proceeded with the final hearing of the injunction application (Exh.6) in the Lavad Suit No.134 of 2022 and confirmed the ad-interim prayers restraining the respondent Nos.1 to 13 from exercising their membership rights. Accordingly, the Special Civil Application No.11197 of 2022 came to be amended. The respondent Nos.1 to 13 – writ petitioners also raised the issue of maintainability of the Lavad cases filed before the learned Board of Nominees and further prayed to quash and set aside the election result dated 19.6.2022 declared by the Election Officer.

4. The learned Single Judge, after hearing all the parties, was pleased to allow the Special Civil Application and set aside the impugned orders passed by the lear