Vipul Chaudhary, the Chairman of GCMMF (owner of brand Amul) has been able to keep the impending Board meeting at arm’s length so far as Gujarat High Court reserved order on his petition challenging the no confidence motion on Monday.
Batting on behalf of his client Chaudhary’s lawyers alleged that no confidence motion was politically motivated and argued that there was no such provision (moving no-confidence motion) in the Gujarat Cooperative Societies Act or in the bye-laws of GCMMF.
On the other hand the Board members through their counsels claimed that it was an internal dispute between members of the body and the chairman had acted in haste by filing the petition.
The Gujarat High Court reserved the order on Monday.
Chaudhary is facing opposition from a majority of board members over mismanagement in Mehsana District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, and for meeting Congress vice-chairman Rahul Gandhi with an eye on National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) top job. Mehsana Union is also headed by Vipul Chaudhary. As many as 17 out of 14 board members of Rs 13,700 crore GCMMF had moved a no-confidence motion against Chaudhary.
In a strong worded letter to Mehsana Union vice-chairman, GCMMF took on Mehsana Union over a number of issues including big loans availed by the union and subsequent interest burden, offering cattlefeed worth Rs 22.50 crore to Maharashtra farmers free of cost without taking the approval of union’s board and selling milk powder to private players at lower rates while overlooking the federation’s advice.