Sugar co-ops feel the heat from State Govt

Sugar co-ops feel the heat from State Govt
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

MUMBAI, DEC 3: With the Congress-NCP front in the driving seat for the State, sugar cooperatives are already feeling the heat.

In a petition seeking to preempt action by Minister of State for Cooperatives Babasaheb Kupekar, the chairman of a sugar cooperative at Solapur, Prakash Shahpurkar, today sought the Bombay High Court's intervention, fearing that the board of directors of the Gadinglaj Cooperative Sugar factory would be arbitrarily dismissed.

The division bench of Justice N J Pandya and Justice J A Patil, while hearing the petition, directed that if at all the State was keen on appointing an administrator for the sugar factory, it would have to give notice to the board of directors.

Shahpurkar had alleged in his petition that Kupekar would be arbitrarily dismissing the board of directors of the sugar factory since that was an election promise made to the people of the area. Shahpurkar and Kupekar had fought the Vidhan Sabha elections recently. Apparently, Kupekar had announced during the campaignthat if he were to be elected, his party (Nationalist Congress Party) would ensure that the board of directors would be dismissed.

Shahpurkar alleged in his petition that Kupekar was in fact pressurising the Government for the dismissal of the board of directors.

Shahpurkar, who had filed the petition in his personal capacity of chairman of the board of directors, had also challenged the 1996-97 Amendment to the Cooperatives Act that had stated that under any circumstances, if the tenure of the board of directors had expired and no elections were held, the board would be dismissed. Earlier, the board was to have been dismissed only if the elections were not held at the behest of the board of directors. However, at the hearing today, this point was not pressed.

Justice Pandya asked the government pleader whether the State was keen on dismissing the board of directors of this sugar factory. The government pleader, taking instructions from his officers, informed that there was no such immediate plan.

Thebench then directed that due notice would have to be given to the board if the State intended to appoint an administrator.