The main legal point established in the judgment is the exclusivity of Section 69 of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act in adjudicating service disputes of employees of co-operative societies, to the exclusion of other statutory remedies.

Antony Dominic, J.

Binani Zinc Employees' Multipurpose Co-operative Society Limited is the appellant. They filed Writ Petition No.29933/08 challenging Ext.P1 order passed by the Appellate Authority under the Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1960. By the said order, the Appellate Authority set aside the order of termination of the first respondent, an employee of the Society and ordered that she shall be reinstated in service with 3/4th of the backwages for the period she was kept out of service after adjusting the subsistence allowance paid or to pay compensation of Rs.4,50,000/- in lieu of re-employment and backwages. By the judgment under appeal, the learned Single Judge dismissed the writ petition. It is aggrieved by this judgment, this appeal is filed.

2. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that, after engaging her from 1991 on daily wages, the appellant society appointed the first respondent as a Junior Clerk with effect from 3.11.1994. She was suspended from service from 7.10.98. This was in contemplation of a disciplinary action, in which she was issued memo of charges containing eight charges. An outsider was appointed as the Enquiry Officer. In Ext.P2, Report submitted by the Enquiry Officer, he held that charge Nos.1 and 2 were partly proved and that charge Nos.4, 5 and 6 were proved. The findings of the Enquiry Officer were accepted by the disciplinary authority and finally, the first respondent was dismissed from service. She preferred an appeal before the Board of Directors under Rule 198 (4) of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Rules. The appeal was rejected by Ext.P4 order.

3. Aggrieved by the above orders, the first respondent filed an appeal under Section 18 of the Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act' for short). By Ext.P1 order, the Appellate Authority set aside the order of dismissal and ordered reinstatement of the first respondent with 3/4th of the backwages for the period she was kept out of service after adjusting the subsistence allowance paid. The management was also given the option to pay compensation of Rs.4,50,000/- in lieu of reinstatement with backwages. This order, was challenged in the writ petition.

4. The judgment under appeal shows that before the learned Single Judge, the main issue raised and considered was about the competence of the second respondent to entertain and consider the appeal filed by the first respondent under Section 18 of the Act. However, relying on Exts.P9 and P10 judgments of this court and the judgment in Thodupuzha Taluk General Marketing Co-operative Society v. Michael Sebastiab [2010 (1) KLT 938], this contention was overruled. The findings of the Appellate Authority were also confirmed by the learned Single Judge and it was held that unless it is perverse or not based on legal evidence, the findings are impugn to interference in a proceedings under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India. It was accordingly that the writ petition was dismissed, which judgment is under challenge before us.

5. We heard the counsel for the appellants, learned counsel appearing for the first respondent and the learned Government Pleader appearing for the second respondent.

6. The first contention raised by the counsel for the appellant was that having regard to the principles laid down by the Larger Bench of this Court in the judgment in Chirayinkeezhu Service Co-operative Bank Ltd. v. Santhosh [2015 (4) KLT 163 (L.B.)], the very appeal filed by the first respondent before the second respondent was not maintainable. The second contention raised is even if the appeal is held to be maintainable, the contentions of the appellant regarding the perversity of the findings of the Appellate Authority were not properly considered by the learned Single Judge. According to him, on the evidence that was available, the Enquiry Officer had found the first respondent guilty of some of the misconducts alleged and t