The term 'touching the business of a society' under S.60 of the Co-operative Societies Act should be interpreted broadly, and only disputes falling within the group of 'touching the business' will fall within the scope of S.60.

1. S.60 of the Travancore-Cochin Co-operative Societies Act X of 1952 comes up for consideration in this Civil Revision Petition. The Coir Industrial Co-operative Society No. 3066 of Chingoli, represented by its President, is the petitioner before me. The Society filed a petition in the lower court praying that the decree passed in S.C.S. No.35 of 1960 against it be declared null and void on the ground that it was passed without jurisdiction. The contention was that the dispute which resulted in the decree was one touching the business of the Society and therefore, it should have been referred to the Registrar, of Co-operative Societies for decision. The lower court refused to accept this contention and dismissed the petition and the President of the Co-operative Society has filed the Civil Revision Petition.

2. The short question for consideration is regarding the connotation or the implication of S.60 of the Co-operative Societies Act. S.60 enacts, among other things, that if any dispute touching the business of a registered Society arises between the Society and a member, such dispute shall be referred to the Registrar for decision. In the present case the Co-operative Society took the respondent's water-logged land for soaking coconut husks. The respondent filed S.C.S. No. 35 of 1960 for recovery of arrears of rent and obtained a decree. The present application by the President of the Society is to declare the said decree as null, void and without jurisdiction. The question is whether the dispute that resulted in the decree was one touching the business of the Co-operative Society.

3. The learned advocate of the petitioner has invited my attention to a few decisions on the matter. The first of the decisions is the Full Bench decision of the Madras High Court in M.S. Madhava Rao v. D.V.K. Surya Rao (AIR. 1954 Mad. 103). The learned judges held therein, interpreting the expression "touching the business of a society" occurring in S.51 of the Madras Co-operative Societies Act, that those words must be given their full import bearing in mind the object of the legislation. They held that taking the dictionary meaning of the word "touching" it indicated that the dispute need not have directly arisen out of the business of the society, but it was enough that it should have reference or relation to or concern the business of the society. They also held that the word 'touching" was clearly not intended to restrict the meaning of the word "business"; it was designed to enlarge its -scope and similarly the word "business" was not used in a narrow sense either. This decision has been followed in a decision of this Court in Kochu Pillai Achari Raman Achari v. Krishnan Achari Paramu Achari (1957 KLT. 362). Yet another Division Bench ruling of this Court in C.J. Joseph v. Registrar of Co-operative Societies (AIR. 1957 T.C. 274) has laid down that so long as the parties to a dispute are those specified in S.60 and the dispute itself is one "touching the business" of the society as defined therein, the matter has to be dealt with under that section and not by way of a regular suit. A recent decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Mishrimal v. District Co-operative Growers' Association Ltd. (AIR. 1961 M. P. 40) has also been brought to my notice by the learned advocate of the petitioner. In that decision it has been held that the Registrar had jurisdiction to decide any dispute between the society and its member, even though the transaction leading to the dispute had no relation to the capacity of the member as such, provided that the transaction touched the business of the society.

4. Regarding the proposition that every dispute touching the business of a Co-operative Society between a member and the Society should be referred to the Registrar, there cannot be any doubt. The section is clear. The question for consideration is as to what is the scope or the connotation or the implication of the term "touching the business" of