COMMON ORDER

These revisions are preferred challenging the separate orders of the Co- operative Tribunal which confirmed the liability fastened on the petitioners in a surcharge proceedings initiated against them along with couple of others on the allegation of financial loss caused to the Dharmapuri Co- operative Town Bank (henceforth would be referred to as Bank)owing to the negligence of the revision petitioners.

2.1 The facts are that the Bank had gone in for automation, popularly known as computerisation and outsourced it to M/s Ahaana Computers, Dharmapuri, a proprietary concern owned by a certain P. Thangavel. This concern was also awarded the Annual Maintenance Contract. They had taken place in 1999, at a time when computerisation has barely entered the Indian shores, and few are familiar with its development and working. Both M/s Ahaana Computers and its owner Thangavel opened separate accounts with the Bank. Yet another account was opened by Thangavel in the name of his brother Selvam. This apart the bank had accounts of three more entities, in all of which Thangavel was connected with. Thangavel developed necessary software for automation, and also had control over the database and also the passwords, and was able to access the ledger accounts of the customers of the bank. Given his expertise in the field, he began manipulating the data of couple of accounts of the customers of the bank and gave an enhanced credit over the actual credit and siphoned off the difference by transferring it to various others accounts where he had a stake.

2.2 An enquiry came to be ordered under Sec.81 of the Tamilnadu Co- operative Societies Act, and it resulted in a report dated 02-12-2004 in which it was identified that three accounts were targeted for defrauding the bank of its funds by Thangavel which according to the report, ended in the bank losing Rs.2,87,48,492.30. One of the points highlighted was that cheques drawn by Thangavel were passed without the passbook of his, and recommended action against certain staff of the bank which included the present set of revision petitioners.

3. This was followed by a surcharge proceedings under Sec.87 of the Act against the staff of the Bank which included the present petitioners, which focused its enquiry to three heads of charges, and it culminated in the proceedings of the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, dated 11.03.2008. The proceedings of the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies found them jointly and severally liable for causing loss to the Bank to a tune of Rs.2,87,48,492.30 owing to their negligence. The table below shows the liability which the revision petitioners or the estate of the deceased staff of the Bank, as the case may be, face:

4. This was unsuccessfully challenged by the petitioners before the Tribunal in separate appeals. The line of reasoning of the Tribunal in each of the case is tabulated below: