Dhadhogal Co-op. Agricultural Service Society Dhadhogal vs State of Punjab

I.S. Tiwana, J. (Oral)

The petitionerSociety impugns the order of the Deputy Secretary to Government, Punjab, Cooperation Department, dated November 20, 1978 (Annexure P.4), purported to have been passed under section 69 of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 (for short, the Act), on the short ground that the same is totally without jurisdiction. The backdrop of the case is as follows.

Vide order dated September 16, 1978, the Assistant Registrar exercising the powers of the Registrar under section 13 subsection (8) of the Act, amalgamated the Cooperative Societies of villages Kheri Jattan and Lohar Majra with that of village Dhadhogal. This order of the Registrar was impugned by the Society of village Kheri Jattan before the Deputy Secretary and the latter vide his impugned order directed that the Society of village Kheri Jattan should be amalgamated with that of village Issra instead of village Dhadhogal. It is this order of the Deputy Secretary which is impugned in this petition and, as already indicated, on the ground that the same is without jurisdiction inasmuch as no revision petition was competent before the Deputy Secretary under section 69 of the Act. In order to appreciate the contention, a reference to the language of section 69 of the Act is a prefatory necessity and it reads as follows :

``69. Revision. The State Government and the Registrar may, suo motu or on the application of a party to a reference, call for and examine the record of any proceedings in which no appeal under section 68 lies to the Government or the Registrar, as the case may be, for the purpose of satisfying itself or himself as to the legality or propriety of any decision or order passed and if in any case it appears to the Government or the Registrar that any such decision or order should be modified, annulled or revised, the Government or the Registrar, as the case may be, may, after giving persons affected thereby an opportunity of being heard, pass such order thereon as it or he may deem fit.''''

The argument of the petitioner''s counsel is that only a party to the reference could approach the Government, i.e., the Deputy Secretary being the delegatee of the Government in the instant case and since the order of the Registrar amalgamating the three Societies was not passed as a result of any reference, the former could not exercise any jurisdiction under this section at the instance of the Kheri Jattan Cooperative Society. Besides this it is also contended by the learned counsel that in view of the provision of sub section (12) of section 13 and subsection (1A) of section 14, neither the Cooperative Society of village Kheri Jattan had any legal entity or was in existence after the passing of the order by the Registrar on September 15, 1978 nor could the Deputy Secretary look into the legality or validity of that order on account of the finality attached to the same by law. As against this, the stand of the learned counsel for respondent No. 3 is that since the Deputy Secretary was entitled to interfere in exercise of his revisional jurisdiction suo motu, therefore, even if in the instant case he had been moved by an individual or this respondent as a petitioner, his order cannot be said to be without jurisdiction. He also seeks to maintain in the light of Brij Lal v. The State of Punjab and others, 1973 PLJ 462, that this respondent had a right to maintain the revision petition before the Deputy Secretary. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties at some length, I find force in the contention raised on behalf of the petitioner and for the same very reasons, the stand of the learned counsel for respondent No. 3 deserves to be repelled.

A bare reading of the language of section 69 of the Act, as has been reproduced above, makes it amply clear that in cases in which no appeal lies under section 68 of the Act, either a party to the reference may prefer a revision petition under this section or the Government may choose to interfere with any decision or order passed under the Act in exercise of its suo motu jurisdiction. For this conclusion of mine I seek support from the interpretation placed on this section by two Division Benches of this Court, i.e., Dharam Singh Rao alias D.S. Rao v. The State of Haryana, 1974 PLJ 278, and Hardial Singh v. State of Haryana, 1975 (1) S.L.R. 55. Besides this I have already taken a similar view in Baljit Singh v. State of Punjab, 1983 PLJ 604. An argument similar to the one raised by the learned counsel for respondent No. 3 that even if in the instant case the respondentSociety had moved the Deputy Secretary under section 69 of the Act, still the impugned order can be taken to have been passed by the latter in exerciser of his suo motu jurisdiction, was noticed and repelled by the Division Bench in Hardial Singh''s case (supra). So far as the judgment relied upon by the learned counsel for the respondent, i.e., Brij Lal''s case (supra) is concerned, firstly, that was a case in which persons to a reference under sections 55/56 of the Act had gone in revision before the Government under section 69 of the Act and secondly, the observations made in paragraph 4 of the judgment on which specific reliance has been placed by the learned counsel, their Lordships were only considering the question as to which orders could be challenged in revision and not who can approach the revisional authority under section 69 of the Act.

I, therefore, allow this petition and set aside the order of the Deputy Secretary, Annexure P.4, but with no order as to costs.