After the UPA govt now the NDA government has also ruled out bringing co-operatives under the ambit of Right to Information Act. The government is not planning to bring any amendment in the Right to Information Act to include co-operative societies under it, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
“No” was the response from minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh to a question from a member seeking to know whether the government is planning to amend the RTI Act and bring co-operative societies under the transparency law.
Co-operative societies do not fall within the ambit of Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court had ruled last year while quashing a Kerala government circular to bring all such societies within the scope of the transparency law.
The controversy has been bogging cooperatives for a long time with cooperative leaders and RTI activists drawn at the two ends of the legal fight.
IFFCO, the cooperative giant was first to win the RTI battle which led many cooperative leaders to heave a sigh of relief and generated a hope among others of battling it out the court in course of time.
Cooperative societies would not be covered under the ” right to information Act” and therefore not liable to share information with public under the law observed the apex court while disposing of a slew of appeals impugning a Kerala High Court judgment in the matter.
The court had said the authority exercised by the registrar of cooperative societies under the cooperative societies Act ” is only regulatory or supervisory and ” supervisory or general regulation under the statute of cooperative societies which are body corporate does not render activities of the body so regulated subject to such control of the state so as to bring it within the meaning of ”state” or instrumentality of the state”.
The court reasoned ” if the information is not statutorily accessible by a public authority as defined in section 2[h] of the RTI Act , that information will not be under the control of the public authority. Resultantly, it will not be possible for citizens to secure access to that information’, the court said.
RTI activists are sure to continue their fight with this rebuff from the new dispensation. Himself a great votary of cooperative movement, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has his personal savings account in one of the urban cooperative banks of Rajkot in Gujarat.
Compare this with a Proviso to Article 243ZL1 reading as under:
“Provided further that the board of any such co-operative society shall not be superseded or kept under suspension where there is no Government shareholding or loan or financial assistance or any guarantee by the Government”
The Supreme Court order referred to in the post bears resemblance to this Constitutional Mandate to States. KEEP HNDS OFF UNAIDEDCOOPERATIVES ARE NOT THE CONCERNS OF MEMBERS OF PUBLIC. PUBLIC DOES NOT SPEND A PIE ON THEM. “RTI Activists” are smart enough not to waste time on NO ISSUE>
There are 2 issues on “Co-operatives under the ambit of RTI”. No.1 the Coop Societies which do not have major Government shares. No.2. Cooperative Societies/Federations have major shares i.e.more than 50 per cent in State/Cent Government. Both categories are regulated by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies.
In SC order dt 7.10.2013 w.r.t. Kerala case, there is ambiguity over the financial funding to Coops by State Government. The division bench struck the orders issued by the Registrar of Cooperatives (Coops under RTI Act) in the absence of materials to show that they are owned, controlled or substantially financed by the appropriate Government and therefore not under Public Authority. In CIC order dated 18.6.2013 (bench of 3 Commissioners) w.r.t. IFFCO case, there is no ambiguity. The bench had clearly spelt that the central Registrar/Central Govt. are regulatory in nature and do not establish control of the Central Govt. over IFFCO since they had no stake of equity with Central Government. Whatever equity they had with the Centre were repartiated before RTI Act came into being. Therefore, it should be clearly spelt out as to whether Category no. 2 comes under the ambit of RTI or otherwise.
Will some expert(s) in the field clarify the said contentious issue in clear-cut terms.
In west bengal the state government has made it mandatory to recruit staff of wholesale consumers cooperative societies through cooperative service commission of government of west bengal.So this type of cooperative societies should come under the provision of RTI