District Magistrate Alone Can Convene No-Confidence Meeting Against Cooperative Society Chairman: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has held that the power to convene a meeting for consideration of a no-confidence motion against the Chairman of a cooperative society vests exclusively in the District Magistrate as the specified authority under Rule 465 of the U.P. Co-operative Societies Rules, 1968, and cannot be delegated or sub-delegated.

It held that where any other officer fixes the time, date and place of such a meeting, he acts coram non judice and the resolution cannot be sustained.

Part VII of the Rules, 1968 governs removal of a society's Chairman or Vice-Chairman by a vote of no-confidence. Rule 458(1) requires the specified authority, on receipt of the notice, to fix the time, date and place of the meeting, the second proviso requiring at least twenty-one days' notice for holding it.

Rule 459 requires that authority to nominate as Presiding Officer a Gazetted Government servant from outside the department concerned with the supervision and administration of the society. Rule 465 declares the specified authority to be the District Magistrate of the district where the society's headquarters is situated.

The bench of Justice J.J. Munir and Justice Indrajeet Shukla held,

“Since the District Magistrate is the specified authority under the rule, therefore none other than the District Magistrate is competent to convene the meeting of no-confidence by fixing a date, time and place; if any other authority/officer of State convenes such meetings, he would be coram non judice.”

Petitioner was elected Chairman of the Committee of Management of a primary agricultural credit society at Khajuri, Block Parikshitgarh, District Meerut, in 2023, along with nine other directors. On 16.09.2025 the directors filed a written requisition before the District Magistrate, Meerut, for tabling a no-confidence motion against him. The In-charge Officer (Janta Darshan) at the Collectorate passed it to the Assistant Commissioner and Assistant Registrar, Cooperative Societies, who by order dated 24.09.2025 directed the Additional District Cooperative Officer/Tehsil In-charge, Mawana-I, to convene a meeting of the Board of Directors under his supervision.

The meeting was held on 06.10.2025, the motion carried, and the petitioner removed. A director, Amit Tyagi, was resolved to function as Acting Chairman until fresh elections. When the Bank declined to operate the society's account on the joint signatures of the Acting Chairman and the Secretary, Amit Tyagi filed a separate writ petition, in which the High Court granted an interim order permitting joint operation; the Branch Manager's order dated 19.08.2026 followed from it.

The removed Chairman then challenged both the resolution and that order, and both petitions were decided together.

Counsel for the petitioner argued that only the District Magistrate, the authority named in Rule 465, could have convened the meeting, and that the power had instead passed down a chain of officers ending with the Additional District Cooperative Officer, which the scheme nowhere permits. He was in any event an officer of the Cooperative Department, and so excluded by Rule 459 from presiding.

Respondents submitted that all the directors had signed the requisition and the motion was carried unanimously, that no prejudice had been shown, and that since the Rules prescribed no consequence for non-compliance they could not be treated as mandatory.

The Court rejected that reading. The opening rule of Part VII forbids a resolution of no-confidence from being moved except in the manner laid down in the Rules, and a provision cast in negative language and followed by 'shall' is, the Court held, a strong indication of an obligatory command.

Referring to Gyan Singh v. D.M. Bijnor, followed in Phula Devi v. State of U.P., it observed that Part VII has been held mandatory except as to the manner in which notice is sent.

“A no-confidence motion strips a democratically elected office like a Chairman or Vice-Chairman; it may override a democratic mandate; the statutory procedure must be followed to the absolute letter.”

On delegation, the Court relied on the Supreme Court in Gwalior Rayon Silk Manufacturing (Wvg.) Co. Ltd. v. Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax and Union of India v. B.V. Gopinath, and on the maxim delegatus non potest delegare, to hold that a discretion entrusted to a named authority cannot be passed on for administrative convenience unless the statute permits it.

“It is clearly settled law that a delegated authority cannot further sub-delegate the power conferred upon it by statute unless the statute itself confers such power. Further sub-delegation is, moreover, wholly alien to the rule of law.”

It held that neither the U.P. Cooperative Societies Act, 1965 nor the Rules, 1968 recognises such sub-delegation. The specified authority's power having passed first to the Assistant Registrar and then to the Additional District Cooperative Officer, the Court held this to be successive sub-delegation, which vitiated the entire proceedings.

The notice fixing the time, date and place not being on record, the Court proceeded on the requisition dated 16.09.2025 and the meeting date, 06.10.2025. Reading 'at least' in the second proviso to Rule 458(1) as synonymous with 'not less than', on the strength of Jai Charan Lal Anal v. State of U.P. and of a Division Bench in Surendra Kumar Yadav v. State of U.P. which had held the requirement mandatory, it excluded both terminal days and found only nineteen clear days.

“There must be 21 clear days between the notice of no-confidence fixing the date, time and place of the meeting and the date of the meeting, excluding both the terminal days.”

The meeting having also been presided over by an officer of the Cooperative Department, Rule 459 too was offended, held the Court.

“The most shocking procedural lapse that is discrenable in dealing with the no-confidence motion in question is that the specified authority, i.e., the District Magistrate, failed to comply with the statutory mandate contained in Part VII of the Rules, 1968.”

Accordingly, the Court quashed the resolution of 06.10.2025 carrying the no-confidence motion and appointing the Acting Chairman. The Branch Manager's order dated 19.08.2026 having lost its foundation, it was quashed too, and the writ petition was allowed. The directors were left free to move a fresh requisition in conformity with Part VII of the Rules, 1968.