Co-operative society employees must pursue subsistence allowance claims through remedies under the Co-operative Societies Act.

The second respondent, an employee of the appellant Co-operative Society, was dismissed on 24 February 2003.

She obtained orders from the Controlling Authority under the Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1981, allowing two claims for subsistence allowance: one for 22 September 2000 to 21 December 2006, and another for 22 December 2006 to 21 May 2014.

The Society’s challenges to those orders were dismissed by a Single Judge, prompting these appeals.

Whether an employee of a Co-operative Society governed by the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act, 1983 and its special bye-laws may claim subsistence allowance directly before the authority under the Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1981.

Whether the orders of the Controlling Authority and the Single Judge should be set aside, and what alternative remedy should be available to the employee.

The Court applied the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act, 1983, treating it as the special enactment governing the affairs and service conditions of Co-operative Societies subject to special bye-laws.

It held, following The Administrator, S.777, Nangavalli Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Society v. P. Thangavel, W.A. No. 1853 of 2026, dated 10 July 2026, that an employee’s subsistence-allowance claim must first be made to the Society’s Management and, if the employee is aggrieved by the Management’s decision, pursued by revision under Section 153 of the 1983 Act; a direct claim before the authority under the Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1981, is not maintainable.

The Court considered the issue covered by the Division Bench’s decision in Nangavalli, which required employees governed by the Co-operative Societies Act and special bye-laws to use the remedies under that Act.

Applying that rule, it held that the Controlling Authority’s orders allowing the employee’s claims could not stand, and consequently the Single Judge’s orders upholding them also had to be set aside.

The Court preserved the employee’s opportunity to pursue the prescribed remedy and directed that the period spent prosecuting proceedings before the Controlling Authority and the Court be excluded for limitation purposes, if applicable.

The employee was granted liberty to submit a claim to the Society’s Management and, if aggrieved, to seek revision under Section 153 before the competent Joint Registrar within two weeks of receiving the judgment.

Any revision was to be decided on its merits within four weeks of receipt, without influence from the orders set aside; time spent in the earlier proceedings was to be excluded when computing limitation, if applicable.

No costs were ordered, and the connected miscellaneous petitions were closed.