SC refuses to stall poll process of cooperative societies in Tamil Nadu

The Supreme Court today refused to stay the ongoing election process for several posts in over 18,000 cooperative societies in Tamil Nadu.

Directing that the poll process would go on, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked the Tamil Nadu State Cooperatives Election Commission not to declare the results until a decision is taken on its petition.

The Tamil Nadu State Cooperatives Election Commission has moved the top court against an order of the Madras High Court ordering "status quo" on the poll process and sought records, pertaining to nominations filed and rejected, from the panel.

"Election process with regard to polls in societies shall go on. Voting shall take place but without declaration of results," the bench also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said.

Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, appearing for DMK MLA and chief whip R Sakkarapani, alleged large scale corruption in the polls and said candidates in almost 85 per cent of the societies were declared winners unopposed.

"There is no contest and no election. Almost 85 per cent societies have seen no election as candidates are getting elected unopposed," he said, adding that approximately 1.4 lakh people filed nominations for several posts and the nomination papers of over 70,000 candidates were rejected.

The apex court asked the Tamil Nadu State Cooperatives Election Commission and the DMK lawmaker to file affidavits in the matter with regard to the total number of nominations and the rejections in the elections to the cooperative societies.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the poll panel, said once the election process has begun, it cannot be stalled. Moreover, these are small elections of small societies and political parties have no role in it.

The Tamil Nadu State Co-operatives Election Commission had on March 5 announced four-phase elections to 18,775 primary cooperative societies. It had held elections to 4,698 societies in phase 1 and 4,479 societies in phase 2. It has to conduct polls to 4,531 societies in phase 3 and 4,727 elections in phase 4.

Challenging the polls, several petitions were filed before the high court alleging that the commission had accepted nominations of candidates who belonged to the ruling AIADMK and declared them successful.

The plea before the high court had also alleged that the commission had rejected nominations of the candidates of rival political parties. However, it did not serve orders to the candidates concerned stating reasons for rejection.

The high court had ordered status quo in the matter.