Test to distinguish between directory and mandatory provisions.

This writ petition prays for the issue of a writ of certiorari or other appropriate writ, direction or order for quashing the order of the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Goimbatore, dated 1st December, 1959, in A.R.C. No. 140 of 1959 under the following circumstances:

The Goimbatore District Co-operative Central Bank, Ltd., is a registered Society governed by the Madras Co-operative Societies Act (VI of 1932). It will be hereinafter referred to as the Central Bank. The General Body of Central Bank consists of the following members: (I) individual members ; (ii) affiliated societies ; (iii) the State Co-operative Bank, Ltd., and (iv) the State Government if they held shares in the Bank. Bye-law No. 8 of the Central Bank provides that each society being a member of the Central Bank shall at a general meeting appoint a delegate who shall hold office for a period of three years or until his successor shall have been appointed in accordance with the rules governing such appointment. Under bye-law No. 11 the management of the Central Bank shall vest in a Board consisting of several persons of whom delegates from several constituencies shall also form part. One such constituency is styled as ‘Audit Union and Urban Banks affiliated to the Central Bank’. Bye-law No. 11, clause (2), provides as follows:

"......The election of these representatives shall be held at separate meetings composed exclusively of the delegates of the respective classes of societies and specially convened for the purpose from among themselves. The President of the Central Bank shall preside over such meetings, and he shall have no right to vote unless he is a delegate from any of the types of societies referred to. In the event of an equality of votes the matter shall be decided on the spot, by the casting of lots ".

For the purposes of the present case what need be noted is that each of the constituencies mentioned in bye-law No. 11, clause (2), has a right to send a delegate to the Board of Management of the Central Bank and the mode of choosing such delegate shall be by election as amongst delegates of each such constituency.

Bye-law No. 14 is as follows:-

" The entire administration of the Central Bank shall vest in the Board of Management. The Board shall be competent to make regulations from time to time not inconsistent with the bye-laws of the Co-operative Societies Act (VI of 1932) (Madras) and the rules made thereunder for the conduct of the business of the Central Bank. A copy of such regulations shall be furnished to the Registrar of Co-operative Societies for information ".

In exercise of the powers conferred under bye-law 14 rules were framed for the conduct of elections and the said rules shall hereinafter be referred to as the election rules. It will be convenient to set out some of the relevant elections rules at this stage.

Rule 4: "Voters’ List : In the year of election before the 10th October, as soon as the particulars regarding the delegates are received from the Societies, a list has to be prepared with reference to the delegates and individual shareholders. This shall be the ‘voters list’. Before the 20th of October of the election year, the list of voters must be prepared, signed by the Secretary and published in the Notice Board of the Bank. A copy of the said list has to be supplied to any voter found therein on a payment of Rs. 10 per copy ".

Rule 5: "Nomination: The candidate for the Board of Management has to file his application under Form No. I, which has to be signed by the candidate, his proposer and seconder. The candidate, his proposer and seconder must be persons found in the voters’ list so prepared. All the three must be from out of the said voters’ list. From the 25th to 28th October of the election year, from 11 A.M. to 3 p.m. on each day, the nomination paper has to be submitted to the Secretary .

The constituency of ‘the Audit Union and Urban Banks affiliated to the Central Bank’ consists of, amongst other