A quorum for committee meetings must exceed fifty percent of total membership; hence, ten members satisfy quorum requirements.

1. The prescription of a quorum is the best assurance against totally heteroclite action in the name of a deliberative body by an unduly small number of persons.

2. The semantic definition of quorum is the minimum number of members required for a group to officially conduct business and to cast votes, often but not necessarily a majority or super majority.

3. Each cogitative body determines the number of members that constitutes a quorum in its governing documents such as its constitution, charter, bye - laws, etc. The quorum may also be set by law.

4. These two writ petitions are being considered together since the common issue involved is as to the availability of quorum for a meeting of the members of the Board of Directors of Wayanad District Co - operative Bank Ltd. ('the Society' for brevity).

5. The proper resolution of this question is acme in these proceedings because the statutory regulatory authorities have concluded that the number of members of the Board of Directors of the Society is so low that no meeting of its can be now conducted, thus leading to a stalemate in its management.

6. I see that W. P. (C) No. 3258/2017 has been filed by the petitioner, who claims to be the President of the aforementioned Society and W. P. (C) No. 4734/2017 is filed by nine others, who claim to be the members of the Board of Directors of the same Society.

7. The principal assertion in these writ petitions is that the petitioners, being ten in number totally, will be enough to constitute the minimum quorum required for the meetings of the Board of Directors for functioning of the Society. The context in which these assertions have been made is that the Government has issued an order, which has been appended as Exhibit P9 in both these writ petitions, holding that the Society does not have enough quorum so as to constitute a legally valid meeting of the committee and that therefore, the elected committee requires to be removed and an Administrative Committee appointed in its place. The petitioners are challenging Exhibit P9 on various grounds but primarily on the avouchment that even going by the statements contained in Exhibit P9 order, the Society would obtain enough quorum to have a valid meeting of the Board of Directors.

8. I have heard Sri. B. S. Swathi Kumar, the learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri. P. P. Jacob, the learned counsel for respondents 2 to 5 and 8 in W. P. (C) No. 4734/2017 and the learned Special Government Pleader for the official respondents.

9. I have examined the order impugned in these writ petitions, namely Exhibit P9. I do not propose to speak anything contrary to the statements contained in Exhibit P9 because I am of the view that even taking the statements contained in the said order as being true, the conclusions reached therein perhaps would not be sustainable. This is the assertion of the petitioners also, who have virtually given up all other contests against the facts recorded in the said order and they say that even if the facts and the statements contained therein are taken to be true, subject, of course, to their challenge in appropriate proceedings, the conclusion arrived therein that the Society will not obtain a quorum for the meeting of the Board of Directors would not be sustainable or worthy in law.

10. I notice that Exhibit P9 order says that there are only ten members in the Board of Directors as of now in the Society. It records that, as per the bye - laws of the Society, the maximum strength of membership is eighteen elected members and three nominated members by the Government. Of course, afte