IBS Associates
A very old but society in Hyderabad is being run by a particular community for its own members of the same community. This is permitted under their bye laws.
This society now intends to serve members of the same community in Maharashtra and therefore wishes to change over from the state act to the multi state act.
Under MSCS Act, will this society be allowed to retain its status for a particular community only?
I C Naik
YES. SHOULD BE DIFFICULT FOR REGISTRAR TO REFUSE BECAUSE OF SC JUDGMENT: IN CASE OF ZOROASTRIAN CO-OPERATIVE HOUSING SOCIETY LIMITED AND ANOTHER V. DISTRICT REGISTRAR CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES (URBAN) & ORS [2005]RD-SC 253 (15 April 2005).
The Apex Court was dealing with a validity of restriction to membership of CHS in Gujarat limited to Parsees only. The Court held that as long as Cooperative Law does not forbid a society to restrict membership as they would like, (whether based on sex,religion,faith,eating habits etc).,society can not be refused registration if members accept restrictions voluntarily.
Para 32 of the S C order supports this view.
“It is true that our Constitution has set goals for ourselves and one such goal is the doing away with discrimination based on religion or sex. But that goal has to be achieved by legislative intervention and not by the court coining a theory that whatever is not consistent with the scheme or a provision of the Constitution, be it under Part III or Part IV thereof, could be declared to be opposed to public policy by the court.”
The Mutli State Cooperative Act 2002 does not forbid societies from defining eligibility of its members based on sex,religion faith etc. As the Constitution prohibits State to discriminate citizens under a law based on religion a cooperative society is not State. But it is a private party registerable as Association of persons (voluntary for its members to join or not) as a Cooperative Society in view of a guarantee given under 19(1)(c) of the Constitution.