IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY EIGHTH DAY OF JANUARY TWO THOUSAND NINE PRESENT THE HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE T.MEENA KUMARI and THE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT APPEAL NO.1667 of 2008 (Writ Appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the Order dated 23- 10-2008 in WP No.23104 of 2008 on the file of the High Court.) Between: The Jubilee Hills Co-operative House Building Society Limited, Road No.17, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, reptd., by its President and another. ..... Appellants And Rajender Prasad Gupta and two others. .....Respondents. Counsel for the Appellants: Sri S.R.Ashok, Senior Counsel for Sri C.V.R.Rudra Prasad. Counsel for the Respondents: Sri B.Adinarayana Rao for Sri A.Achutanand for R.1. G.P. for Co-operation for R2 & R3. The Court made the following : JUDGMENT: (Per C.V.Nagarjuna Reddy,J) Feeling aggrieved by order dated 23-10-2008 in Writ Petition No.23104 of 2008, whereby the learned single Judge directed the appellants to register the plot in question in favour of respondent No.1, the present Writ Appeal is filed. The facts, which are not in dispute, are that the father of respondent No.1- late Bishweshar Nath Gupta was allotted a plot by respondent No.1 Society. The said allottee, admittedly, died. Respondent No.1 applied to appellant No.1- Society for transfer of membership of his father along with the plot in his name. As the said request was not acceded to, respondent No.1 raised a dispute under Section 61 of the A.P. Co-operative Societies Act, 1964 (for short “the Act”) before the Arbitrator/Registrar of Co-operative Societies, A.P., Hyderabad, respondent No.2 herein, which was keenly contested by the respective parties. Respondent No.2, through his award dated 17-8-2006, held that the appellants are under obligation to transfer and allot the membership and plot in favour of respondent No.1. The said award having been unsuccessfully challenged before the A.P. Co-operative Tribunal, Hyderabad, respondent No.3 herein, in CTA No.83 of 2006, the appellants filed Writ Petition No.23104 of 2008. Before the learned single Judge, the appellants raised the contention that, according to the procedure being followed by the appellants, the person, who is seeking transfer of membership of the deceased member along with the plot, is under an obligation to obtain succession certificate. The learned single Judge, having rejected the said contention, directed the appellants to transfer the membership along with the plot by permitting the appellants to add a clause, while admitting respondent No.1 as its member or transferring the allotment of land in his favour, to the effect that the same would be subject to the claims that may be made by any other persons as legal heirs of the deceased member. At the hearing, Sri S.R.Ashok, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellants, submitted that as per the resolution passed by the managing committee of the appellant No.1-Society a person, who claims to be the legal heir of a deceased member shall obtain succession certificate from the competent civil Court before seeking transfer of membership and allotment of plot in his favour. Sri B.Adinarayana Rao, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.1, opposed this contention and invited our attention to Byelaw 13(4) of the Byelaws of appellant No.1-Society and also Rule 17 of the A.P. Co-operative Societies Rules, 1964 (for short “the Rules”) and submitted that respondent No.1 filed consent letters from all the family members, who are the legal representatives, of the deceased member; and that in view of the same, there is no necessity for respondent No.1 to obtain a succession certificate. We have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. Rule 17 of the Rules and Byelaw 13(4) of the Byelaws read as under: “Rule 17. Procedure to be adopted when no nomination is made: (1) If no nomination has been made by a member, the society shall, on the death of a member by a notice exhibited at the office of the society invite claims or objections for transfer of the share or interest of the deceased member to an heir to legal representative within the time specified in the notice. (2) After considering the objections of claims if any, received in this behalf and after making such inquiries the committee considers necessary, it shall decide as to the person who in its opinion is the heir or legal representative of the deceased member, and to proceed to transfer the share or interest of the deceased member to such person, only. (3) In case of payment of the value of the share or interest or other moneys due to the deceased member, the committee shall obtain sureties for the amounts involved in such payments from two members of the society”. “Byelaw No.13(4): If no nomination has been made by a member, the society shall on the death of the member, by notice exhibited at the office of the society invite claims or objections for the transfer or payment of the share or interest of deceased member to a heir or legal representative within the time specified in the notice. After considering the objection or claims, if any, received in this behalf and after making such enquiries, as the Managing Committee considers necessary, it shall decide as to the person who, in its opinion, is the heir or the legal representative of the deceased member to such person. Such person shall be admitted as a member, before the transfer of shares in his name is given effect to”. From the above extract, it is evident that Byelaw No.13(4) is in pari materia with Rule 17(1) and (2) of the Rules. Therefore, we cannot countenance the submission of the learned senior counsel that the Society passed a separate resolution envisaging production of succession certificate. It is axiomatic that no such resolution could be valid contrary to the Society’s own Byelaw and the statutory Rule, which admittedly govern the affairs of appellant No.1-Society. As per the procedure prescribed in the above mentioned Rule and the Byelaw, it is evident that if no nomination is made by a member, the Society shall, on the death of a member, by a notice exhibited at the office of the society invite claims or objections for transfer of the share or interest of the deceased member to an heir or legal representative within the time specified in the notice. Though we have taken note of the submission of the learned counsel for respondent No.1 that the other legal heirs of the deceased member have given their no objection, in the face of the procedure prescribed by the Byelaw and the Rule it is incumbent upon the parties to follow the said Byelaw and the Rule in letter and sprit and appellant No.1-Society shall, therefore, invite objections as per the procedure prescribed therein. Though the Byelaw prescribed the method of inviting objections by exhibiting the notice at the office of the Society, in view of the serious dispute raised by the appellants and to avoid any future litigation, we deem it appropriate that appellant No.1-Society, in addition to placing the notice in the notice board of its office, shall publish the notice in atleast one newspaper having wide circulation in the locality inviting objections for the proposed transfer. Such notice shall be got published within a period of four weeks from today and appellant No.1-Society shall take a decision on the application of respondent No.1 within a period of two weeks from the date of publication of the notice in the newspaper. The order of the learned single Judge is modified to the extent indicated above and the Writ Appeal is accordingly disposed of. As a sequel to disposal of the Writ Appeal, WAMP No.3296 of 2008 is dismissed as infructuous. _______________________ T. MEENA KUMARI, J. _________________________ C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J. Dt.28–01-2009. MNR