Point of Law: Section 32 only mandates that competent Authority may after giving Committee an opportunity to state their objections, if any, by order in writing, removed Committee and appointed in its place an Administrator or an Administrative Committee.

JUDGMENT :

DEVAN RAMACHANDRAN, J.

1. The petitioner is stated to be the President of the Managing Committee of the 3rd respondent-Adat Farmers Service Cooperative Bank Ltd. (Society, for short), which has now been superseded through Ext.P17 order.

2. The petitioner asserts that Ext.P17 was issued without affording him an opportunity of being heard - he having come to know of it only when it was published in the news media; and further that none of the statutory requirements under Section 32 of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act (‘KCS Act’ for short) had been followed, before it had been issued. He thus prays that Ext.P17 be set aside.

3. I have heard Sri. George Poonthottam - learned Senior Counsel, instructed by Smt. Ann Maria Francis, appearing for the petitioner; Sri. P.C. Sasidharan - learned counsel for respondents 2 and 3 and Smt. C.S. Sheeja - learned Senior Government Pleader appearing for the 1st respondent.

4. Before I proceed further, I must record that, since the specific contention of the petitioner is that he was not heard before Ext.P17 had been issued, it will be treated by me as a preliminary objection, because, if that is to be found in his favour, the said order will have no legs to stand on, going by various judicial precedents covering the field. I say so, since, in such event, the question whether there was proper consultation and if other requirements under the statutory Scheme had been followed, would be relegated to a second position in its rigour and consideration.

5. Sri. George Poonthottam - learned Senior Counsel, vehemently argued that his client was never given an opportunity of being heard and he pointed out to Ext.P15 notice issued by the Joint Registrar, under the provisions of Section 32 of the KCS Act. He asserted that the aforesaid notice only offered his client and others an opportunity of furnishing their written explanations against the action proposed; and that it has now been well settled, through the judgment of a Full Bench of this Court in Reji K. Joshy and Others vs. Registrar of Co-operative Societies (General), Kollam and Others, 2022 (3) KHC 317 that “the Act contemplates an opportunity of hearing to all affected persons before action is taken on the report of inquiry or inspection, whether it be under Section 32 or under Section 68, except in situations provided for in Section 32 where the Registrar is empowered to dispense with the opportunity of hearing.” He argued that, therefore, when no other notice has been issued to his client, Ext.P17 is rendered forensically incompetent.

6. After arguing as afore, and as his second limb of submissions, the learned Senior Counsel contended that the Circle Co-operative Union and the Financing Bank were apparently consulted by the Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies by issuing to them Ext.R1(f) notice; but that this contained none of the documents which were statutorily required to be enclosed, as is evident from itself. He relied upon the judgment of a learned Division Bench of this Court in Sahadevan vs. Padmanabhan, 2004 (1) KLT 192, to predicate that it is not merely sufficient that the explanation of his client alone be attached to the “tentative findings” but that every other document mentioned therein ought to have been so. His singular argument was that, in the absence of such documents, even if the consultees had given their opinion, it can only be seen to be a futile formality, since it is clear that they had no idea on what basis the said findings had been entered into by the Joint Registrar.

7. As an adscititious argument, Sri. George Poonthottam, learned Senior Counsel, then contended that, even going by Exts.R1(f), R1(g) and R1(h) - which are the opinions placed on record by the Circle Co-operative Union and the Financing Bank respectively - it is luculent that they were settled by Authorities who are much below the Joint Registrar; and that this is more so in the case of the Financing Bank, which was, concededly, under the