In a major relief to Navin Patnaik government on the issue of controlling 2,000 SHGs and cooperative societies the Odisha High Court on Wednesday ruled in its favour.
Dismissing all the writ petitions that had challenged the new law on cooperative societies and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) the court vacated the interim stay it had imposed on the operation of the new law last year.
But the new cooperative law will have to wait till three months and could be operational only after May 19 this year.
After repealing the Odisha Cooperative Societies Act, the Government last year had promulgated the Odisha Self-help Cooperative (Repeal) Ordinance, which subsequently took the shape of an Act.
Challenging the Ordinance and the subsequent Act, more than a dozen petitions were filed in the High Court in which the petitioners had questioned the intentions of the Government on the plea that it was against the spirit of an earlier judgement of the Supreme Court as they violate the rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1) C of the Indian Constitution.
Admitting the petitions, the High Court in September last year had slapped a stay on the operation of the 2013 Ordinance and issued notices to the State Government asking the Chief Secretary, Law Secretary and Registrar of Cooperative Societies to file counters to the petitions.
Hearing both sides, Chief Justice AK Goel and Justice AK Rath on Wednesday dismissed all the petitions and vacated its stay order.
