Gokul dairy: The controversy over elections to Maharashtra’s largest milk cooperative

The elections to the board of Maharashtra’s largest dairy cooperative, Gokul, and the events that followed have been at the centre of controversy. On Tuesday (November 10), the candidate of the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance was elected the cooperative’s chairman, with the Opposition claiming that the ruling alliance had “usurped power”, with some farmer leaders also joining the protest.

This came a day after the Bombay High Court’s Kolhapur bench refused to grant a stay on the state government’s decision to give voting rights to four government-nominated directors on the Gokul dairy board. The court will hear the case next on November 25.

Why Gokul dairy matters

Gokul is a major political and economic institution in western Maharashtra. It has an annual turnover of nearly Rs 4,000 crore and a network of 4.41 lakh milk producers across an estimated 1,810 villages in Kolhapur district.

Control over it gives political parties influence over rural households and the vast network of farmers, many of them marginal producers who depend on regular milk payments for household income.

The Gokul election

In the board election held on October 19, a panel led by Congress MLC Satej Patil (Rajarshi Shahu Shetkari Samvichari Aghadi) won 13 of the 25 director seats. The Mahayuti-backed panel (Chhatrapati Shahu Shetkari Vikas Aghadi) won the remaining 12.

In the subsequent board meeting to select the chairperson, the 12 Mahayuti members initially stayed away from the meeting. It was claimed that as per Gokul’s existing bylaws, this meant that the required quorum for the chairperson’s selection couldn’t be met.

To break this deadlock, the 13 Satej Patil-allied panel members subsequently held a separate meeting and declared Shashikant Patil Chuyekar the chairman. The Gokul administration, however, said that this decision was not recognised, prompting the Patil-led group to approach the High Court. On November 2, the court directed that the elections be held on November 10, with notices to all 25 elected members to remain present.

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Then, on Friday (November 6), the state government approved and issued an ordinance, giving the government the power to appoint five directors to cooperatives with an annual turnover over Rs 500 crore, with four of them having voting rights. The ordinance amends Section 73AAA of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, which earlier stated that nominated and government-designated directors cannot vote in the election of a chairman or other office-bearers. The ordinance states that the members shall not be eligible to be elected as office-bearers of the committee but gave four of them voting rights.

The ordinance introduced one government officer, not below the rank of the assistant registrar of cooperative societies, and four “having such requisite experience relating to the work of the Society and such qualifications, as may be specified by the government” to be nominated on the board. Accordingly, five members were appointed.

This tilted the dairy’s board in favour of the Mahayuti. In the elections held on Tuesday (November 10) to choose the chairperson, the Mahayuti panel candidate, Rajesh Patil, won 16 votes — 12 from the elected board, four from the government appointees — and defeated Chuyekar’s tally of 13.

‘Changes in rule after the game has started’

Chuyekar and others filed an interim plea before the High Court, seeking that the ordinance be quashed and set aside, calling it arbitrary, against the Constitution and stating that it has been issued in “colourable exercise of powers”. The petitioners said that the ordinance passed after the elections cannot apply now, calling it “patently illegal as it changes the Rule after the game has started”.

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By introducing four government-appointed voters, the petitioners claimed that ‘artificial voters’ were created and this was done ‘to unsettle the democratic process’, when no such law was brought into effect for 30 years. The petitioners also referred to provisions of the Act, which says that no nominee of the government shall be entitled to vote in any election of office-bearers of such a committee.

‘Government not an outsider’

The state government submitted that a law introduced by the legislature cannot be stayed unless the law passed is absurd. It said that no irreparable loss will be caused if a stay is not granted, and that the government itself is not an outsider but concerned with the interest of such cooperative societies, with elections being just one part of its functioning.

It also said that Gokul is not the only society on which the ordinance will apply, and that there are four such cooperative societies in the state, so the government’s decision cannot be said to be selective.

The state government also argued that such a proposed ordinance was already under consideration by the government, with a communication between the government departments, dated October 16 — three days before the election — annexed. It also submitted that the ordinance is for a limited duration, since it requires to be passed by the state Assembly or it lapses.

Why the court refused to grant stay

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According to the vacation bench of Justice Neeraj P Dhote, the regular Division Bench that heard the main petition on November 2 had specified that any steps taken by the parties during the pendency of the plea would be subject to its outcome. So, all the steps — including the ordinance and the chairperson elections — would depend on the court’s final decision. The vacation bench noted that no case for stay or any interim relief was made out.

The court also noted that the decision for the ordinance was already under consideration and that there were three other similar societies with an annual turnover of more than Rs 500 crore. It said that hence the ordinance prima facie cannot be said to have been tailor-made for Gokul.

The court also considered various judgments cited by both sides on the judiciary’s powers to strike down such laws passed by the legislature, one stating that mere possibility of abuse of a provision of law doesn’t invalidate a legislation. It said that since the ordinance is under challenge, the presiding officer shall keep a separate ballot box for the government nominees and the elected members and preserve all relevant documents.

A former CJI’s legal opinion

A day before the ordinance was passed, a legal opinion sought from former Chief Justice of India B R Gavai by the Patel-allied panel was emailed to the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary and the Cooperation Department Secretary. Although Gavai stated that he was only giving opinion on the information submitted before him, he said that since the High Court had ordered for the chairman’s election to be held, such an ordinance before the elections would amount to “direct interference in the judicial process”.

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On the proposed change in the law to give voting to nominated members, he had said that such an action “would be hit by the doctrine of manifest arbitrariness and would amount to colourable exercise of powers”. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the former CJI had not been given a full picture, and that the election cannot take place without a requisite quorum.