The High Court has directed the authorities of cooperative societies concerned to include in the voter rolls the names of the members who had paid the requisite membership fee prior to December 21, 2012 to enrol as members of the respective primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS) in the state.
Justice MS Ramachandra Rao, while dealing separately with a batch of writ petitions challenging the various alleged irregularities in the ongoing process of elections to cooperative societies in the state, ordered that a separate ballot box be placed for these members to cast their votes in the election and the ballot box shall be preserved till the challenge, if any, to the election to managing committee of the respective society was complete.
The judge made it clear that in the event of these members being found ineligible to be admitted as members for any reason subsequently by the competent authority, then their votes shall not be taken into account and that the result of the election shall be revised according to the result of the inquiry into their eligibility.
J Satyam and 275 others, M Venkata Reddy and 35 others from Guntur district and G Anil Kumar from Krishna district and several others from Prakasam, Kadapa, Chittoor and Anantapur districts moved the court seeking a stay on the cooperative elections.
They contended that the action of the election authorities in publishing the final voter lists without including their names, despite paying the requisite fee, as illegal.