MAHAJAN Vs. STATE CO-OPERATIVE ELECTIONS AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of present Writ Petition, the petitioner is challenging the impugned order dtd. 10/3/2023 passed by the respondent no. 2 - Taluka Returning Officer and Assistant Registrar, Co-operative Society, Mukhed whereby objections of the petitioner to delete the names of respondent nos.5 to 14 from the provisional voters list of the respondent no. 4 - Society has been turned down by the election authority.

(2.) The elections to the respondent no. 4 - Vividh Karyakari Seva Sahakari Sanstha, Betmogra was due. The election programme for preparation of the voters list was published on 23/1/2023 for the term of 5 years i.e. 2023 to 2028. As per the schedule programme, the provisional voters list was published on 24/1/2023. The objections to the provisional voters list were invited from 24/1/2023 to 2/2/2023. Hearing on the same was fixed from 2/2/2023 to 8/2/2023. The last date date for withdrawal of nomination is on 10/4/2023 and 16/4/2023 is the date for polls.

(3.) It is the case of the petitioner that the respondent nos.5 to 10, 6 in numbers, are not the members of the respondent no. 4 society. There is no proper application for registration of their membership and thus there is no compliance of Rule 19 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961 read with bye law no.6 of the respondent no. 4 - society, and as such, their names ought not to have been included in the final voters list as they are not members of the respondent no. 4 - society. In case of respondent nos.11 to 14, the learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that, the order passed by the respondent no. 2 - election authority is erroneous as their names did not appear in the 'I ' and 'J ' register and loans were not taken by the said respondents and certificates to that effect were already filed on record.