Bombay High Court: A Division Bench of Ujjal Bhuyan and Abhay Ahuja, JJ., while addressing an issue with regard to the Cooperative Societies, made an observation that,
We find it a bit perplexing that for a dispute having its genesis in charging or billing of an individual shareholder member, drastic steps, such as, dissolution of the managing committee and appointment of Administrator have been resorted to.
Petition challenges the Order passed by the Dy. Registrar i.e. respondent 2 directing the Shyamrao Vitthal Co-operative Bank — respondent 4 not to allow the petitioner to operate the Society bank account and challenging the order passed by respondent 2 also directing respondent 4 Bank to permit the administrator appointed by respondent 2 to operate the bank account of Viddhisha Shantiniketan CHS Ltd. i.e. Respondent 7 Society.
Bench on perusal of the facts and circumstances of the present case noted that the present matter is a very hotly contested dispute between the office bearers of the Society on the one hand and an individual of the Society on the other hand.
High Court declined to entertain the present petition as the appeal is still pending for the present matter.
Court directed respondent 3 to decide the pending appeal so that the day-to-day functioning of the Society is not hampered due to the dispute.
Till the disposal of the appeal is done Society shall be jointly managed under the Chairmanship of the petitioner and the Respondent 6 only for day to day affairs including payment of municipal taxes, light bills and other outgoings of Respondent 7 Society.
Bench added to its direction that respondent 4 shall unfreeze the account to allow the operation of the respondent 7 account.
Co-operative societies are now a part of the constitutional scheme as cooperative societies have been inserted in the Constitution of India as Part IX B by way of the Constitution (Ninety-seventh Amendment) Act, 2011 w.e.f 15-02-2012.
Therefore, in view of the above-stated position, co-operative societies should have the necessary space and autonomy to function and develop to its full potential. Also, interference in their matter should be avoided unless there is a serious statutory breach.
Court disposed of the present petition in view of the above terms. [Rambujarat Ramraj Chaurasia v. State of Maharashtra, 2020 SCC OnLine Bom 901, decided on 02-09-2020]