28-05-2025
Kerala HC upholds cooperative society Act amendment
A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday upheld a section that was incorporated into the Kerala Cooperative Society Act that barred members of managing committees of credit societies such as State cooperative bank, service cooperative banks, and primary agricultural society from contesting to their respective committees for more than three consecutive terms.
The court had earlier this year stayed a single judge's order that struck down as unconstitutional such a section incorporated into the Act. The State government had appealed against the single judge's verdict.
The Division Bench found validity in the argument that irregularities might occur if a person occupied the same post for long, especially since financial institutions in the cooperative sector in Kerala handled huge sums of money. It was in this situation that the Act was amended.
Many cooperative institutions that were unable to payback fixed deposits of customers had members who were serving over three consecutive terms, it said.
