Cuttack, Sept. 5: A petition was filed in Orissa High Court challenging the “constitutional validity” of the Orissa Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2011, which had been passed by the Assembly on August 26.

Filed by Aska Central Cooperative Bank president Kartikeswar Parida, the petition said the provision in the Bill for dissolution of the existing elected cooperative bodies before completion of their term was “undue and undesirable”. It stated that the Assembly had passed the Bill “in a most hurried manner”. The petition said: “There is no reason at all to bring a legislation by incorporating a provision that the elected committee are to vacate the office from the date of commencement of the amended Act — Orissa Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2011.”

The Orissa Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, pending assent of the governor provided for five-year tenure of bodies consisting of primary, central and apex society instead of four years. The Bill also has provision for uniform and proportional representation of scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward class (including socially and educationally backward classes) and women to the committees of the societies proportionate to their number in the society.

The petitioner stated that by virtue of the amendment, all the existing elected cooperative bodies are to be de-reserved and the ground for such dissolution is lack of caste-based proportional representation. The Vaidyanathan Committee Report, designed to bring reforms in the cooperative sector, had categorically recommended that normally the elected committees should not be dissolved unless there was any allegation or adverse report by the RBI.

“In such view of the matter, the idea and attempt in the Bill to dissolve the present committee and vest the management with the registrar only on an irrelevant ground about proportional representation of scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and women is unwarranted and uncalled for,” the petition contended.