Gujarat government has decided to wait for Supreme Court’s verdict with regard to appointment of custodians in cooperative societies and banks in the state that are functioning without holding elections of management committees within stipulated time frame, reports Press Trust of India.
Readers would recall that IFFCO Board shrank from taking any action against Natu Patel after the news of appointing a Custodian in GUJCAMOSOL appeared in the media. Talking to Indian Cooperative its MD Dr U S Awasthi said that the matter is still pending in court and we will cross the bridge when we come to it.
Indian Cooperative has titled the news item “Tsunami in Gujarat Co-ops’ which elicited curious responses from the cooperators across the board. Two high-profile cooperators for whom this decision of the State govt has brought immediate relief are Natu Patel, IFFCO Director and Dudhsagar Chairman Vipul Chaudhary.
The state government had last month appointed custodians in Mehsana District Central Co-operative bank and Dudhsagar Dairy in Mehsana, which were among 100-odd co-operative institutions that had not conducted elections of respective management committees in the stipulated five-year term.
These appointments were made as per the new provisions of Gujarat Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill 2015, which was recently passed in the Assembly and approved by the Governor.
Under the Act, the government is now empowered to appoint custodians in such societies to initiate the process of election.
However, managing committees of both the institutions approached the Gujarat High Court against the appointment of custodians.
Gujarat government spokesperson Nitin Patel today said the Court recently revoked the appointment of custodian in Mehsana District bank.
The state government then approached Supreme Court to challenge the order of High Court.
The Supreme Court today gave an interim order in favour of the state govt. and approved the appointment of custodian and set aside the High Court order
Though the Supreme Court gave its order in favour of Gujarat government official sources say the government has decided to wait for the final verdict before going ahead in appointing custodians in other 100 co-operative institutions.