Rama Rao & Anr. Vs. Narayan & Anr.

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Rama Rao & Anr. Vs. Narayan & Anr.

FACTS OF THE CASE :

Narayan Tanbaji Murkute applied for membership of the Nagpur District Land Development Bank Ltd. as ” non-borrowing member” because it is registered as a society under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960. Murkute and 94 others were enrolled as members in a meeting held on June 30, 1964. But they were still not included in the list of members entitled to take part in the general meeting.

So, they applied to Registrar Co-operative societies for passing an order that declared them being entitled to participate in the elections of office-bearers and to restrain the President and the Secretary from holding Annual General Meeting. The Registrar referred their application to his nominee, H.V.Kulkarni under section 93 of Maharashtra Co-operative societies act.

Certain Documents including minutes book of the bank were produced before the nominee during the proceeding and he decided the dispute on May 7, 1965. But it was claimed by Murkute that those books were fabricated by the President and the Secretary to make it show that they were never elected members of the bank. Then, Murkute and others filed a complaint about the same on August 7, 1965.

CONTENTIONS OF NARAYAN MURKUTE :

He filed a complaint in the Judicial Magistrate, first class, Nagpur alleging that both the President and the Secretary fraudulently added a clause in resolution no.3 of the minute book that was not known to them when passed and committed an offence under section 465 and 471 I.P.C.

CONTENTIONS OF ACCUSED:

Two contentions were raised by the counsel of  two accused as:-

1. “Court” having meaning under sec.195 of Cr.P.C. was considered as the nominee of the Registrar who was appointed under sec.95 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act,1960. So, it was alleged that sec. 465 and 471 I.P.C. can’t be entertained.

2. The complaint was not maintainable as the offence charged fell within the offence under sec.146(P) of the 1960 act.

RATIO DECIDENDI :

This case was authored by J. Shah and stated that it was unnecessary to consider the question whether the Maharashtra State Legislature was competent to repeal the provisions of sec. 465 I.P.C. as both have distinct consequences.

JUDGEMENT :

It was held that both the contentions were not acceptable by the court that two sec.146(p) of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies act of 1960 and sec. 465 of I.P.C. deal with the same offence as the punishment in offence under sec 477 I.P.C. can reach imprisonment for lifetime but in sec 146(p) of act, it’s only for 3 years.

 There can be two different offence that can be committed by different numbers of persons under both provisions of act and I.P.C. and it can’t be intended to repeal the provision of I.P.C. by enactment of sec146 of 1960 act.So, the appeal is dismissed as both contentions fail.

CONCLUSION :

In this particular case, the meaning of “court” under the Maharashtra Co-operative societies act, 1960 was decided and duties of the nominee of the Registrar having judicial powers also were decided . 

It was also clear that if any two sections of codes of law contain the same offences, then they will be repealed or not by another provision if one of them gets imposed as offences under both provisions would still be so distinct and done through various ways by different sets of people.

written by Chanchal Garg intern under legal vidhiya

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