Writ challenges UP ordinance on coop societies

Allahabad, Sep 18 (UNI) The ordinance issued on September 5 by the Uttar Pradesh Government on reducing the tenure of the UP Cooperative Societies from five years to two years has been challenged in the Allahabad High Court.

The court on the writ petition filed by a chairman of the district cooperative bank, Allahabad, today asked the state government to file a counter affidavit in this case, fixing October 9, 2007 for hearing the case.

A division bench comprising Justices B S Chauhan and Arun Tandon passed this order on a writ petition filed by Sughar Singh, chairman of district cooperative society, Allahabad.

The state government on september 5, 2007 had issued an ordinance amending section 29 in the UP Cooperative Societies Act, whereby the tenure of the executive body of the cooperative societies had been reduced to two years from five years.

By this amendment, the tenure of about 4,500 cooperative societies had come to an end.

The state government had appointed district magistrates as administrators in those cooperative societies, whose term had already been expired.

The petitioner's plea was that the decision of the government reducing the five-year tenure of the executive body cooperative societies was politically motivated and illegal.

The petitioner had alleged that they had been elected for five years and their term to hold office cannot be curtailed by a subsequent ordinance having its retrospective effective.

UNI