1. The committeeof the second respondent society consisted of nine members. On 27-11-2007, an urgent meeting of that committee was held at 5 p.m. to accept the resignation letters of the petitioners, who are 2 in number and of respondents 4 and 5. Ext.P15 will show that respondents 4 and 5 had written to the President that they are withdrawing their resignations. The committee accepted such withdrawal, going by Ext.P15. It is not in dispute that another member G. Veluswamy Gownder had tendered his resignation on 30-11-2007 and the committee accepted it on 9-10-2008.

2. The resignation of the petitioners and the aforesaid Veluswamy, not being in dispute, the number of members of the committee is reduced from 9 to 6, which is sufficient to sustain the committee, going by the quorum rule.

3. According to the petitioners, respondents 4 and 5 having tendered their resignations, they were not entitled to withdraw such resignations since, in terms of the Explanation to Section 33(1) of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act, 1969, hereinafter referred to as the "Act", "a tender of resignation" by a member of the committee shall have the effect of terminating his membership from the Committee. It is accordingly contended in the writ petition and argued by the learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners that the further provision in Rule 38 (4) of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Rules, 1969, hereinafter, the "Rules", that the resignation shall have effect only from the date of its acceptance by the committee is contrary to the provisions in the Act and therefore, the resignation of respondents 4 and 5 had taken place the moment it was tendered by them to the President. Accordingly, it was argued that the committee had no authority to enter into Ext.P15 resolution accepting the withdrawal of the resignation of respondents 4 and 5, by them.

4. The 3rd respondent, the President of the society has filed counter affidavit placing therewith Exts.R3 (1) and R3(2) stating that the so-called resignation letters were obtained from respondents 4 and 5 in the manner stated in Exts.R3(1) and R3(2). The 4th respondent has filed a counter affidavit for herself and on behalf of the 5th respondent producing Exts.R4(1) and R4(2), which are nothing but copies of Exts.R3(1) and R3(2), stating further that since they came to know that the papers obtained from them were misused and even put to use as their resignation letters, they approached the first respondent Registrar and put him on notice about the true state of affairs, by tendering their sworn statements before him. I may also notice the version of the first respondent that no case of mismanagement, corruption and favoritism has come to the notice of the first respondent.

.5. In answer to the arguments on behalf of the petitioners, the learned counsel appearing for respondents 4 and 5 argued that the case in hand is not one where resignations were tendered and then withdrawn, but a case where, respondent 4 and 5, two females who, apparently, are either illiterate or persons with poor knowledge of malayalam, going by the materials on record, were duped and made victims of fraud and undue influence and that, therefore, notwithstanding the

.provisions in the Explanation to Section 33 (1), whatever documents are shown to be their resignations, cannot be acted upon.

.6. Section 33(1) of the Act provides, among other things, that where vacancies occur in the committee either by resignation or otherwise and the number of remaining members cannot constitute the quorum for the meeting of the committee, the Registrar may, either suo motu or on the application of any member of the society, appoint administrator or administrators. The terms "resigns" and "resignation" in Section 33(1) have an explanation at the foot of Section 33(1), which provides that for the purpose of that sub-section, a tender of resignation by a member of the committee shall have the effect of terminating his membershi