The appeal memorandum should be signed and verified by the appellant or his authorized representative and not by his advocate or pleader.

Cyriac Joseph, J.

1. The appellant is the petitioner in O.P.No.35551/2002 which was disposed of by the learned Single Judge on 11.12.2002 as per the impugned judgment.

2. The appellant was a candidate in the election held to the Board of Directors of the Kothamangalam Service Co-operative Bank on 26.12.1999. He was defeated in the election. He raised an election dispute under Section 69 of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act (for short 'the Act'). The said dispute was registered as A.R.C.No.226/2002. As per the award in A.R.C.No.226/2002, the election was set aside. The elected members of the Board of Directors filed an appeal before the Kerala Co-operative Tribunal as A.P.No.76/2002. Along with the appeal, the appellants filed I.A.Nos.415/2002 and 419/2002. I.A.No.415/2002 was for stay of the award and I.A.No.419/2002 was for reinstatement of the appellants as members of the Board of Directors, since an Administrator had already assumed charge pursuant to the setting aside of the election by the Arbitrator. The said interim applications were allowed by the Tribunal on 6.11.2002. Challenging the said order dated 6.11.2002 of the Tribunal, the appellant filed O.P.No.35551/2002 which was disposed of by the learned Single Judge as per the impugned judgment.

3. The main contention raised in the Original Petition was that the appeal filed by the elected members before the Tribunal was not maintainable since it did not conform to the provisions of Rule 98(1) of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Rules (for short 'the Rules'). Though the same contention had been raised before the Tribunal, the Tribunal had rejected the contention. In the impugned judgment the learned Single Judge has held that if it is only a matter of submitting the appeal in a form other than the prescribed form, it is only a defect that could be corrected and that if the appeal is otherwise maintainable, it cannot be rejected for the reason that it is not filed in the prescribed form. It has been further observed by the learned Single Judge that if the material details required to be furnished in the prescribed form are not available in the memorandum of appeal, the appellant shall submit such details and will cure the defect in the appeal or otherwise the Tribunal is free to allow the appellant to file the appeal in the prescribed form and to treat such an appeal as one filed in the place of the original one filed defective. The learned Single Judge has prima-facie found that the appeal is maintainable. Aggrieved by the judgment of the learned Single Judge, this appeal has been filed by the petitioner in the original petition.

4. Mr.George Poonthottam, learned counsel for the appellant raised only one contention before us. According to the learned counsel, Rule 98(1) of the Rules provides that every appeal memorandum submitted to the Tribunal under sub-section (1) of Section 82 of the Act shall be in Form No.15 of Appendix II of the Rules and it shall be verified in the manner specified therein. As per Form No.15, the appeal memorandum has to be verified by the appellant or his authorized representative. However, the appeal filed by respondents 1 to 10 before the Tribunal was not signed by the appellants and there was no verification by the appellants or their authorized representative. The verification was only by the advocate of the appellants. As per Rule 99(3) of the Rules, no appeal or application shall be accepted by the Secretary of the Tribunal unless it conforms to the provisions of sub-rule (2) of Rule 99 and to the provisions in Rule 98 of the Rules. It is contended that since the appeal filed by respondents 1 to 10 did not conform to the provisions of Rule 98 of the Rules, the Secretary of the Tribunal ought not to have accepted the appeal and the Tribunal ought to have held that the appeal is not maintainable.

5. According to the learned counsel for respondents 1 to 10, as per Form No.15, the verification can be made by the appellants or th