The apex body of cooperatives in the country NCUI held its Governing Council meeting virtually on Tuesday where impending election remained the main agenda. Unable to find a way out due to Covid conditions, the leaders brainstormed about resolving the issue.
The current Board of NCUI is continuing much beyond its tenure. It also cannot seek any solution from the MSCS Act 2002, which offers no insight as it did not foresee a situation like this arising out of the Covid crisis.
The Governing Council which met on Tuesday decided to go in for election as soon as possible. Attended by most of the members including Dileep Sanghani who attended for the first time after replacing B S Nakai to represent IFFCO, the GC decided to write to the Ministry describing the prevailing situation before the apex body.
We would like to seek guidelines from the Ministry, said one of the GC members on condition of anonymity. “We also fear that if we do not move on the issue, the govt may declare us defaulter and force the pace on its own-not a welcome development for the apex body”, he underlined.
Earlier, NCUI’s outgoing President Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav sounded confident that NCUI would go to the polls around 20th Sept. Yadav was encashing that by 14th July, when the GC meets, some guidelines would come from the Ministry.
“Sixty-days’ notice period would be required to be given if the Governing Council decides to hold election on July 14th meeting, which means till September 15, elections cannot be held”, Yadav had opined.
But now since Tuesday the Board could not finalize a date and decided to hear from the govt first, the September date as suggested by the outgoing president does not seem achievable.
NCUI would need to prepare a voter list and go down to the nitty-gritty in the intervening period but what matters most is the issue of appointment of Returning Officer. Earlier, the office of Central Registrar sent a panel of probable ROs which was later nullified by a new circular in the matter.
Confusions abound in the new Circular as it seems to be aimed more at multistate co-op societies than the national level cooperatives such as NCUI.
Titled “Panel of Returning Officer for Conducting the Elections of the Board of Directors of the Multi-State Co-operative Societies and Banks”, the Circular says “the Board of all Multi State Cooperative Societies/ Banks may appoint the Returning Officer (RO) for conduct of elections of the societies/banks from the following panel of serving officers,
A. Sitting Assistant Registrar (Co-operatives) or Dy. Registrar (Cooperatives) of the district where the head office of the society/bank is located
B. Any sitting officer equal to or above the rank of Dy. Registrar (Cooperatives) of the Cooperative Department of the State where the head office of the society/bank is located.
C. District Collector of the district or any other officer not below the rank of Dy. Collector/SDM nominated by the Collector where the head office of the society/bank is located,
D. An officer not below the rank of Dy. Commissioner from the Office of Sugar Commissioner
The Circular is silent for cases like NCUI and other national co-op bodies.
