The petitioner is an employee of the second respondent, Co-operative Society and was retrenched from service. Challenging the said order of retrenchment, he has filed the present writ petition.
2. A counter has been filed stating that the bye-law 19 provides for filing a revision before the Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies.
3. As per Section 153 of the Tamil Nadu Co-Operative Societies Act, the petitioner has a remedy by way of revision to the Registrar of Co-operative Societies against any order with regard to the correctness, legality or propriety of any decision or order. A larger Bench of this court in the decision in K.Marappan VS The Deputy Registrar of Co-operative societies,Namakkal circle,Namakkal and another reported in 2006(4) CTC 689, has held in paragraph 21 (vi) as follows:
"The bye-laws made by a Co-operative Society registered under the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Societies Act 1983 do not have the force of law. Hence, where a Society cannot be characterised as a "State" the service condition is of its employees governed by its bye-laws cannot be enforced through a Writ Petition."
4. In view of the above, the Writ Petition is disposed of with liberty to the petitioner to prefer a revision before the competent authority within a period of two weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and if any such revision is filed, the revisional authority shall entertain and dispose of the same as expeditiously as possible, preferably, within a period of eight weeks thereafter. On the question of limitation the authority shall consider the petitioner's plea for excluding the period during which the writ petition was pending, as period to be excluded. No costs.
PAL To
1. The Registrar of Cooperative Societies, NVN Maaligai Kilpauk, Chennai.10
2. The Special Officer, A-1493 Pattiveeranpatti Coffee cum Cardamom-Growers Cooperative Bank ltd., Pattiveeranpatti, Dindigul District 624 221