The petitioners say that they are the

President and Members of the Managing Committee

of the Muvattupuzha Primary Co-operative

Agricultural and Rural Development Bank Ltd

(hereinafter “The Bank” for short) and that they

are aggrieved by the fact that pending their

statutory appeal, namely Ext.P20, preferred

against the report under Section 66 of the Kerala

Co-operative Societies Act (KCS Act for short),

obtained by the 1^st respondent-Joint Registrar of

Co-operative Societies, the said Authority is

taking further action against them under Section

32 of the Act and they apprehend that the

Managing Committee of the Bank will be superseded

pursuant to such action.

2. The petitioners say that they are,

therefore, constrained to approach this Court

assailing Ext.P19 notice, which has been issued

to them by the Joint Registrar calling them for a

hearing on 10.06.2019, so as to lead to further

4

action under Section 32 of the KCS Act. They,

therefore, pray that the Joint Registrar be

directed to defer all proceedings Under Section

32 of the KCS Act until such time as their

statutory appeal is disposed of.

3.

Sri.Jaju Babu, the learned Senior

Counsel, assisted by Sri.Brijesh Mohan, the

learned counsel for the petitioners, began his

submissions by affirming the afore factual

narration and added that the specific fear of the

petitioners is that the Joint Registrar is acting

with a pre-disposed mind so as to obtain

supercession of the Managing Committee of the

Bank and for the appointment of a Part-Time

Administrator/Administrative Committee to be in

its charge. He asserts that the contents of the

Section 66 Report, namely Ext.P10, is extremely

damning but devoid of truth and therefore, that

if the Joint Registrar acts upon this report,

then an order of supercession under Section 32

becomes virtually inevitable. He, therefore,

reiteratingly contends that unless the statutory

appeal against Ext.P10 report is disposed of one

5

way or the other, it will not be justified of the

Joint Registrar to take further action under

Section 32 of the KCS Act merely based on the

said report.

4.

In answer to the submissions of Sri.Jaju

Babu as afore, the learned Special Government

Pleader, Sri.Muhammed Hashim, began his

submissions by saying that Section 32 of the KCS

Act does not constrain the Registrar of Co-

operative Societies to act solely on the terms of

any report obtained by him either under Section

63, Section 65 or Section 66 of the KCS Act. He

says that the Registrar is competent to take

independent action based on the prescriptions

under Section 32 of the KCS Act; however adding

that the contents of Ext.P10 will also be

certainly required to be taken into account. He

then says that the reliefs sought for by the

petitioners in this Writ Petition cannot be

granted because they have preferred Ext.P20

before an incompetent Authority, since according

to him, the competent Appellate Authority is the

Government of Kerala, before whom alone the

6

petitioners could have filed their Appeal under

Section 83 of the KCS Act or a Statutory Revision

under Section 87 of the said Act. He further

submits that in the present case, the Joint

Registrar is exercising all the powers of the

Registrar of Co-operative Societies as per valid

authorisation of the Government and therefore,

that he cannot consider Ext.P20 appeal against

Ext.P10 report which was obtained by him.

5.

On

hearing

the

learned

Special

Government Pleader as afore, the learned Senior

Counsel, Sri.Jaju Babu, submits that his clients

preferred Ext.P20 appeal before the Joint

Registrar of Co-operative Societies because

Ext.P10