Employees governed by cooperative society bye-laws must pursue subsistence allowance claims under the Co-operative Societies Act.

The Management appealed against the order dated 15 December 2021 in W.P.(MD) No. 16583 of 2013.

The dispute concerned an order made by the Assistant Commissioner of Labour in P.S.A. No. 19 of 2012 under the Tamil Nadu Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1981.

At the appeal hearing, both parties submitted that the legal issue was covered by the Division Bench decision in W.A.(MD) No. 651 of 2022, dated 24 September 2026.

Whether the Assistant Commissioner of Labour could determine the employee’s claim for subsistence allowance under the Tamil Nadu Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1981, where the employee was governed by the cooperative society’s service framework.

Whether the orders of the Assistant Commissioner of Labour and the Single Judge should be set aside in light of the precedent in W.A.(MD) No. 651 of 2022.

The Court applied the principle adopted in Administrator, S. 777, Nangavalli Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Society v. P. Thangavel, W.A. No. 1853 of 2026, dated 10 July 2026, and followed in W.A.(MD) No. 651 of 2022: the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Societies Act, 1983 is the special enactment governing cooperative societies, and claims arising from service conditions governed by the society’s special bye-laws must be pursued through the remedies under that Act.

On that approach, an employee’s subsistence-allowance claim cannot be brought directly before the authority under the Tamil Nadu Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1981; the employee must first approach the Management and, if aggrieved by its decision, may invoke the revisional jurisdiction under Section 153 of the 1983 Act.

The Court did not independently reconsider the statutory issue; it accepted the parties’ submission that the controlling Division Bench ruling applied.

Following that ruling, it held that the Assistant Commissioner’s order in P.S.A. No. 19 of 2012 could not stand and that the Single Judge’s order, which had left that order undisturbed, was also liable to be set aside.

The appeal was allowed in the terms of W.A.(MD) No. 651 of 2022, including the liberty provided there for the employee to claim subsistence allowance from the Management and, if aggrieved, pursue a Section 153 revision.

The connected miscellaneous petition was closed.

Under the incorporated directions in W.A.(MD) No. 651 of 2022, the employee was granted liberty to approach the Management and thereafter, if aggrieved, seek revision under Section 153; the limitation period was to exclude the time spent prosecuting the earlier proceedings.