Vacation judge Justice H L Gokhale, while staying the notification, adjourned the petition challenging the bifurcation to June 7, when the courts restarts after the vacation. The order came in the wake of a petition filed by the Mumbai District Cooperative Bank challenging the state government notification of May 6 bifurcating the apex bank with deposits upto Rs 1,800 into one body for the Mumbai district and the other for the suburbs.

According to the petitioners, the state government had violated section 18 of the Cooperative Societies Act, whereby a draft scheme had to be published in the official gazette before any such act is undertaken. Also, the draft was not served on the bank, which was the affected party, and had a right to be heard before the bifurcation was finalised.

Kulkarni alsoargued that the state misused section 157 of the same Act whereby it decided that it could relax section 18 and go ahead with the bifurcation without the due notices. He accused the state government of exposing its malafides when it approached the high court on May 6 seeking an extension of time, even though it had already prepared the order on the bifurcation that was served on the bank in the evening of May 6. The petitioners argued that the bank which had been functioning since 1974 has not met with any situation that necessitates a bifurcation.

At the court of Justice Gokhale, when the matter came up today, government pleader R V Govilkar said the state government was willing to hold on to the notification till the court reopened on June 7. Justice Gokhale held that he would stay the notification till June 14, leaving the matter to be decided by the regular courts before that.