The resignation of committee members takes effect at the time of tendering the resignation, and the subsequent appointments must comply with the legal requirements. The failure to publish a notice as stipulated in the proviso to Section 33(1) of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act, 1969, was held to be inconsequential.

JUDGMENT :

Admit. Government Pleader takes notice for respondents 1 and 2. Notice to respondents 3 and 4 is dispensed with.

2. The prayer in the writ petition is to quash Ext.P6 and for a direction to the 4th respondent not to assume office in the light of Ext.P6 and if assumed, to hand over the charge to the petitioners. There is also a prayer to declare that resolution No.242 whereby Sri.Sulaimankunju was nominated as member is proper. The contention of the petitioner is that the Managing Committee of the 3rd respondent assumed office on 21.10.2019. There are nine members in the committee. The quorum for the meeting of the committee is five. It is stated that the Managing Committee has already crossed half of its term. Since the son of one Thajudeen, a member of the committee, got appointed as a peon, Sri.Thajudeen tendered resignation on 12.09.2022 to the President of the Board of Directors. A meeting of the Committee was held on 20.09.2022, wherein the letter of resignation submitted by Sri.Tajudheen was accepted. Five persons participated in the meeting including Sri.Thajudeen. On the same day, another decision was taken to nominate Sri.Sulaimankunju in the vacancy created by the resignation of Sri.Thajudeen. Subsequently, four of the Managing Committee members named Sri.Vijayaraghavan, Sri.Surendran, Sri.Sivadasan and Smt.Laila Beevi tendered resignation on 12.11.2022. Thereafter, the 1st respondent issued Ext.P6 order on 19.11.2022 removing the committee by invoking Section 33(1) of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act, 1969 (the Act for short) and appointing an Administrator in the place of the committee.

3. The counsel for the petitioner argues that under Section 33, where vacancies occur in the committee either by a resignation or otherwise and the number of the remaining members cannot constitute the quorum for a meeting of the committee, the Registrar can either suo motu or on application of any members of the society appoint an Administrator. The proviso to the section says that before making such an order, the Registrar shall publish a notice on the notice board of the Head Office of the society inviting objections to the making of the order. The contention of the petitioner is that Ext.P6 has been issued without publishing such notice and without affording an opportunity to satisfy the Registrar that there is necessary quorum. It is submitted that a democratically elected committee cannot be removed in such a manner. Reliance is placed on the decision in P.Mohammed and others v. The Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Cannanore and others [ILR 1985 Ker 335] wherein this Court held that for invoking Section 33, the requirement of notice before taking decision has to be complied with. This Court held that the second proviso which says that in cases where the Registrar is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable to publish such notice, the same need not be published, cannot be an answer in a case where there is mere extraction of the words of the second proviso. Reliance is also placed on the decision of a Full Bench of this Court in Pavithran v. State of Kerala [2009 (4) KLT 20 (F.B)] wherein this Court held that in administrative matters, there are only voidable orders and unless a person aggrieved takes recourse to the appropriate remedy at appropriate time even an illegal order will be treated as valid and binding. The said decision is relied on to submit that there is already a resolution whereby Sri.Sulaimankunju has been nominated as a member and as such even after the resignation of the four members, there are five members remaining to constitute the quorum. It is submitted that so long as the resolution nominating Sri.Sulaimankunju is not set aside in a manner known to law, it remains to be in force. It is hence submitted that the above facts have not been considered while issuing Ext.P6 order. Reference is also made to Rule 38(4) of Co-operative Societies Rules, which specifically says that a