PRADEEP BHAURAOJI LONARKAR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners who are the cultivators and members of respondent No. 2-society collectively made a grievance against the making of special endorsement on the cheques being issued in their favour towards the price of cotton supplied to the society under the monopoly scheme.

(2.) ACCORDING to them, the society makes an endorsement on the cheques while making payment as "account payee with District Co-operative Bank only. "

(3.) THE contention of petitioners is that in view of this special endorsement, they have to deposit the cheque only in District Co- operative Bank. They contended that sometimes there are no facilities in the bank. The main thrust of their grievance is that it is wholly illegal to impose any condition of depositing the cheque only in the District Co-operative Central Bank or its branches. They submitted that some of the cultivators are having the accounts in nationalised banks. However, owing to the endorsement they cannot make deposit in the said bank. This practice is malicious and has been adopted to harass the cultivators. Another submission of the petitioners is that most of the cultivators do not take loan from the societies and some of them take loans from nationalised banks. Compelling such persons to make deposit of the cheques only in the co-operative banks is unjust and unfair.