Delhi high court summons Registrar of Co-operative Societies

The Delhi high court has summoned the Registrar of Co-operative Societies on a petition alleging that its Appellate Tribunal has not been functioning for the past several months on the ground of non-allotment of space to set up office.

"This is unfortunate state of affairs and we are informed by the counsel for Co-operative Society that the Tribunal was earlier functioning at the office of the Registrar...," a Division Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Valmiki J Mehta said and asked the Registrar to appear in person on July 13, the next date of hearing of the matter.

"At least an interim arrangement ought to have been made for the Tribunal to commence proceedings since the absence of the same is compelling the parties to approach this court resulting in not only expenses to parties but unnecessarily burdening the docket of this court," the Bench said.

The court asked the Registrar to explain before it as to where the space would be allotted so that the Tribunal starts proceeding expeditiously.

Recently, the Bench disposed of a petition filed by one Ram Naresh who stated that he had to approach the court as the Tribunal had not been working for past three months due to lack of space and his applications and appeals had not been heard.

Following this court's previous direction, the Tribunal was constituted and initially it functioned at the office of Registrar, Co-operative Societies but for the past several months the same was not working on the ground that space was not alloted to set up the office.