PIL wants co-op election details to be made public on TNSCSEC website

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Tamil Nadu State Cooperative Societies Election Commission (TNSCSEC) to upload on its website all details such as list of members of every cooperative society, voters list, list of contestants, results of scrutiny of applications and declaration of winners.

L. Pachaiyappan, outgoing president of Kuram Vadhiyur Primary Agriculture Coperative Society in Kancheepuram district, had filed the petition on the ground that largescale complaints of cooperative elections being manipulated in favour of ruling partymen could be averted if there was greater transparency on the process through the commission’s website.

In an affidavit, filed through his counsel E. Vijay Anand, the petitioner pointed out that Article 43B of the Constitution cast an obligation on the government to make an endeavour towards promoting voluntary formation, autonomous functioning, democratic control and professional management of co-operative societies. Accordingly around 19,000 cooperative societies had been formed in the State and elections to them were conducted through the commission. The first of the four phases of this year’s election was already over and there were numerous complaints of rejection of nominations filed by candidates in order to help ruling partymen get elected unopposed.

Such complaints could be avoided if the TNSCSEC makes the entire process transparent by disclosing every other crucial detail on its website as it was done by the Election Commission of India during the general elections, the petitioner said and sought an appropriate direction to that effect.