A public interest litigation petition was filed in the Hyderabad High Court seeking direction to the Andhra Pradesh government to take steps for conducting elections immediately to the state’s primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS), district cooperative central banks (DCCB) and AP state cooperative bank (APCOB).
Petitioner K Balakrishna retired DCCB branch manager of Eluru, challenged the state government’s decision, through an amendment to law relating to cooperative societies, extending the tenure of the governing body by two years. Though the tenure of the governing bodies was ended in Jan this year, the government has again extended the tenure by another six months contrary to the guidelines of the Cooperative Act.
As per the Act, polls should be conducted prior to completion of the tenure. Instead of conducting the polls the government extended the tenure by two years.