HC laments deterioration of cooperative movement

Expressing deep concern over large-scale deterioration in the cooperative movement and the current paralytic state of hundreds of cooperative societies due to the corrupt practices of their office-bearers, the Madras High Court on Wednesday impressed upon the need for the Tamil Nadu State Cooperative Societies Election Commission (TNSCSEC) to ensure conduct of free and fair elections.

Justice S.M. Subramaniam made the observation while disposing of a batch of writ petitions filed by various individuals alleging several irregularities in the elections conducted by the TNSCSEC for 18,435 cooperative societies recently. Since the petitioners had also accused the election officials of having colluded with the candidates in many societies, the judge ordered that appropriate action be taken against such officials.

He made it clear that the EC should remain a neutral body accountable to the people at large and it should not yield or succumb to pressure from any quarters. The judge said that a number of cases alleging various illegalities in the recent election process could have been avoided if the TNSCSEC had strictly followed procedures contemplated under the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Societies Act of 1983 as well as the rules framed thereunder.

Grievance petitions

He recorded the submission of TNSCSEC counsel M.S. Palaniswamy that though elections were conducted this year for a whopping number of 1,84,970 vacancies in 18,435 societies in four phases, the commission had received only 1,525 grievance petitions between March 1 and May 7 and those petitions were related to just 860 societies. After receiving those complaints, the commission had cancelled elections for 412 societies.

Further, Additional Advocate General P.H. Arvindh Pandian brought it to the notice of the court that though all four phases of the elections were over, the results of elections held to some of the societies were yet to be declared due to a status quo ordered by the court. He also said that the matter was taken up to the Supreme Court which had, on Monday, given the liberty to the High Court to take a call on declaring those results.

After taking note of the submission, Mr. Justice Subramaniam gave liberty to all those who had grievances, with respect to alleged irregularities in cooperative elections, to submit individual representations along with supporting materials to the TNSCSEC which, in turn, was ordered to dispose of those representations within eight weeks from the date of receipt and after a hearing.

The judge said that the commission could declare the results of the elections after disposing of the representations received with respect to each of those cooperative societies. If any individual was aggrieved, then he/she could raise a dispute before the Registrar of Cooperative Societies under Section 90 of the Act and such a dispute should be resolved preferably within six months, provided the parties to the dispute cooperate to the inquiry.