Cuttack, Oct. 17: The Orissa government’s alleged bid to run cooperative bodies by replacing elected bodies with nominated representatives from the BJD suffered more setbacks today.

Orissa High Court today restrained the nominated committees from running 10 more cooperative bodies.

While five nominated members, including BJD leader Jageswar Babu, were restrained from managing affairs of the Orissa State Cooperative Bank, same restriction was imposed on five members, including Srimati Majhi (wife of former minister Balabhadra Majhi), nominated for the Bhawanipatna Central Cooperative Bank.

The government had superseded various cooperative societies in the state by issuing separate orders on September 24 following enforcement of the Orissa Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2011, for which the bill was passed during the last monsoon session of the Assembly.

The interim orders were issued today on petitions filed separately by presidents and directors of the elected cooperative bodies who had challenged the constitutional validity of the Orissa Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2011, and order of registrar of the Cooperative Societies, Orissa, which replaced elected bodies with nominated committees to run cooperative bodies.

The petitions had the common contention that the registrar had allegedly acted mechanically in a hot-haste manner by sheer abuse of power vested in him to accommodate and rehabilitate some disgruntled and weary politicians belonging to the BJD, who were either defeated in the last cooperative elections or deprived of party tickets.

The petitions had further alleged that the action of the registrar was undemocratic and autocratic which cut at the root of the sacrosanct provisions enshrined in the Constitution of India. Moreover, the action goes against the cooperative principle, which postulates democratic management of the cooperative bodies.

“After a preliminary hearing, the division bench constituting of Justice B.P. Das and Justice S.K. Mishra, in an interim order, ordered that the elected committees should continue to manage affairs of the Orissa State Cooperative Bank, central cooperative banks of Banki, Nayagarh, Balesore-Bhadrak, Aska, Cuttack and Nuapada, the Bhubaneswar Wholesale Consumer Cooperative Society and the Puri Urban Cooperative Bank,” petitioners’ counsel Pitambar Acharya told The Telegraph.

Bijay Swain, director of the Bhawanipatna Central Cooperative Bank, had also filed a separate petition. “The court, in its interim order, asked the 15-member elected committee headed by Kali Prasad Raiguru as president to continue to manage affairs of the Bhawanipatna Central Cooperative Bank,” Swain’s counsel Satyaranjan Pati told The Telegraph.