The State Government has the jurisdiction to confer all the powers entrusted to the Registrar under the Orissa Cooperative Societies Act, 1951, upon persons appointed to assist the Registrar, including the Assistant Registrar.

R. N. MISRA, J.

( 1 ) THIS application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India seeks to challenge the jurisdiction of the Assistant Registrar under the Orissa Cooperative societies Act, 1951 (Act 11 of 1952) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) to make the impugned award on 27-3-62 in a dispute raised by Opposite Party No. 2. That award of the Assistant Registrar was challenged in an appeal before the Deputy registrar under Section 128 (1) of the Act and was also subjected to two revisions in succession -- one under Section 131 before the Registrar and the other under section 132 (1) before the State Government. The decision of the Assistant registrar having been upheld by all the forums the petitioner has come up before this Court.

( 2 ) ONE of the grounds raised in the petition is that the Assistant Registrar had no jurisdiction to entertain the dispute directly and his taking cognizance of the dispute without a reference of the dispute being made by the Registrar has vitiated the exercise of a jurisdiction by the Assistant Registrar. When this writ application came up for hearing before a Division Bench consisting of their lordships the Chief Justice and Ray, J. , a decision of this Court passed in O. J. C. No. 104 of 1967 (Orissa) was cited wherein my Lord the Chief Justice and myself took the view that it was not open to the Assistant Registrar to entertain a dispute raised under Section 71 (1) of the Act unless such a dispute was referred to him by the Registrar. The correctness of this decision was challenged before the division Bench which was hearing this writ application and, therefore, in pursuance of the order dated 10-12-1969 'this larger Bench has been constituted to examine the correctness of the decision in O. J. C. No. 104 of 1967 (Orissa) (hereinafter referred to as the "earlier case" ).

( 3 ) THE reasoning which was given in the earlier case to uphold the conclusion that no other authority except the Registrar was entitled to entertain a dispute under the Act was as follows :--

"it is not disputed by the parties that the Assistant Registrar and the deputy Registrar are persons on whom jurisdiction has been conferred under Section 8 (2) of the Act to discharge the specified powers entrusted to the Registrar by or under the Act. But the scheme of section 73 makes it clear that all references of disputes under Section 71 are to be made to the Registrar, and after the disputes are received he may dispose of the disputes himself or transfer such disputes for disposal to persons authorised under Section 8 (2) oe the Act. The necessary consequence pf this provision is that no other authority than the Registrar has jurisdiction to receive reference or disputes which are to be made under Section 71 of the Act, and after taking cognizance of the disputes under Section 73 it is open to the Registrar to keep the disputes for disposal by himself or transfer the same to the persons authorised in the manner indicated above. Therefore it follows that unless a dispute is transferred either to the Assistant Registrar or to the deputy Registrar by the Registrar, the former has no jurisdiction to be in seisin of it. On the aforesaid analysis, the award of the Deputy Registrar is wholly without jurisdiction inasmuch as neither the Assistant Registrar before whom the dispute was originally placed nor the Deputy Registrar to whom it was transferred as indicated above could entertain the dispute unless it was one which had been received by the Registrar and had been made over to either of them for disposal in accordance with the Statute. "

( 4 ) THE learned Counsel appearing before us now did not dispute the correctness of the aforesaid conclusion if it was to be drawn only from the statutorry provisions contained in Chapter IX of the Act. The clear effect of the provisions in Sections 71 (1) and 73 of the Act would lead to the said conclusion. The correctness of the decision is, however, disputed on the basis tha