Prem Parkash Choudhary vs Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary to Government of Haryana, Cooperative Department, Chandigarh and others

Ranjit Singh, J.—The petitioner has approached this Court against the order passed by Financial Commissioner, Cooperative Department, dated 14.5.2012, whereby his election to the Society has been set-aside in an election petition filed by respondent No. 5. The election of the petitioner was challenged through election petition which is allowed and the election of the petitioner was set-aside by the Additional Registrar, Cooperative Society, on 24.7.2010. The petitioner filed an appeal before the Financial Commissioner, which is dismissed on 14.11.2011 and hence, the petitioner has filed the present writ petition.

As per the petitioner, when the voters list was prepared, respondent No. 5 had filed a revision petition, challenging the voters list as well as the zones by presenting a petition before Registrar, Cooperative Societies. The said revision petition, however, was dismissed on 18.8.2009. Respondent No. 5 did not prefer any appeal against this order. On 17.2.2010, respondent No. 5 filed objections to the voters list and the zones before the Zonal Committee. The said objections were also found devoid of any merit and were dealt with in an order passed on 19.2.2010. Against this order again, respondent No. 5 did not file any appeal or revision. The voters list and the zones were finally approved. On 27.6.2010, the petitioner was elected, whereafter respondent No. 5 challenged his election, leading to the passing of the impugned orders.

The sole submission made by counsel for the petitioner is that the grounds on which respondent No. 5 has challenged the election of the petitioner are the same, for which earlier he had raised objections to the voters list or the zones, which were dismissed being devoid of merit and as such, for the same reason, the election of the petitioner could not have been set-aside.

Learned counsel for the petitioner was asked to indicate from the order, dismissing objections to the voters list to show if the same ground has led to an order in the election petition.

The copy of the objections filed by respondent No. 5 is annexed as Annexure P-3. The objections against the tentative list of zones 1 to 10 and voters list seem to have been filed through Annexure P-1. No doubt, the Zonal Committee has considered the objections so raised and rejected the same due to reasons that the zones have been duly constituted keeping in view the geographical continuity. The objections were also rejected on the ground that neither specific details or instance nor any relevant record or proof before the Zonal Committee in this regard were produced. Thereafter, the election followed and respondent No. 5 challenged the election of the petitioner by filing election petition under Sections 102/ 103 of the Haryana Cooperative Societies Act, 1984 (for short, "the Act").

This election is challenged on the ground that the same was not held as per the requirement of law. The Additional Registrar considered the election petition and found that in most of the cases the resolution had been passed without 2/3rd majority of the Managing Committee members but these resolutions have been accepted by Zonal Committee in Zone No. 8. Thus, the election was held to have been conducted on the basis of defective zone list in Zone No. 8 and so the election of the petitioner was held invalid. The petitioner did not raise any plea on merits on this finding but only restricted his arguments that objections to the voters list and zones have been earlier rejected, could not be again raised. The Financial Commissioner also found that Additional Registrar, Cooperative Societies, has rightly held that the resolution was not passed without 2/3rd majority, which is contrary to the provisions of Rule 20. The Financial Commissioner also noticed the violation of Section 20(e) of the Act. A Society, which is under process of winding up or liquidation, shall not be eligible to exercise its right to vote. The Financial Commissioner accordingly did not find any merit in the appeal. No submission is made on this count as well. Since, there is no plea raised on merits to contest the reasons for which the election is set-aside, no interference is called for in this writ petition. There is no merit in the plea raised by the petitioner and the writ petition is accordingly dismissed.