S. M. N. RAINA, J.

( 1 ) THIS is a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution.

( 2 ) THE Jabalpur Wholesale Consumer Co-operative Society Ltd. , Jabalpur (hereinafter referred to as 'the Society') is a consumer co-operative society duly registered under the Madhya Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act' ).

( 3 ) THE petitioner is a shareholder of the Society and is also a member of its managing Committee. Respondent No. 1 who was appointed Election Officer to conduct the elections of the Society issued general notice (Annexure P-1)notifying the programme of election of the members of the Managing committee of the Society. According to the said pro-gramme the election of the members of the Managing Committee was to be held on 16th of December, 1'973 at the Annual General Meeting of the Society. The date fixed for filing nomination papers for the members of the Committee was 8-12-1973; the date of scrutiny was 10-12-1973 and the last date for final withdrawal was 12-121973.

( 4 ) THE petitioner filed his nomination paper on 6-12-1973 for the membership of the Managing Committee. The nomination paper of the petitioner was, however, rejected by the respondent No. 1 vide Annexure P-2 on the ground that he was disqualified for being a candidate at the election. The contention of the petitioner is that his nomination paper was wrongly rejected by respondent no. 1 without affording any opportunity to the petitioner of being heard in the matter. The petitioner, therefore, filed this petition praying that the order of rejection may be quashed and the petitioner may be allowed to contest the election for membership of the Committee.

( 5 ) RULE 40 of the Madhya Pradesh Co-operative Societies Rules (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules') provides that a Society may for the purpose of election of the members to its committee divide its membership into different groups on a territorial or any other basis and the bye-laws of such a society may specify the number or proportion of the members of the committee who may be elected to represent each such group on the committee. Under Bye-law 12 of the Society, 4 members are to be elected by the primary consumer societies; one member is to be elected by marketing and other societies while 4 members are to be elected from amongst the individual shareholders. The petitioner was a candidate for election as one of the four members to be elected as representatives of the individual shareholders of the Society. We are told that the election of the representatives of the other two groups has already taken place and the learned counsel for the petitioner made it clear that the petitioner did not challenge their election. He merely challenged the election of the members representing the third group. It was further not disputed before us that 5 persons including the petitioner had filed their nomination papers for 4 seats. As the petitioner's nomination paper was rejected the other 4 candidates, namely, respondents 4 to 7 could be declared as duly elected, but their election has been stayed by order of this Court dated 15-12-1973.

( 6 ) BEFORE we proceed to deal with this petition on merits, we would like to consider the preliminary objection that this petition is liable to be dismissed on the ground that it was open to the petitioner to pursue the alternative remedy before the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, under Section 64 of the Act. Under sub-section (1) of Section 64 of the Act, the Registrar is competent to decide disputes arising in connection with the election of any officer of the Society. The word "officer" as defined in Clause (u) of Section 2 of the Act includes a member of the Committee and, therefore, election of a member of the committee falls within the purview of Section 64. Learned counsel for the petitioner, however, urged that in view of the proviso to Clause (v) of Subsection (2) of Section 64 of the Act a dispute relating to rejecti

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