Baroda Dairy challenges co-op registrar's instructions in HC

VADODARA: After Anand's Amul Dairy and Valsad's Vasudhara Dairy, Baroda Dairy has moved Gujarat high court (HC) challenging instructions of Gujarat state registrar of co-operatives to give equal representation to all talukas of the district under their respective jurisdictions.
The cooperatives registrar has directed the district dairy unions to conduct the forthcoming polls for their respective boards on the basis of Gujarat HC's judgment in the case of north Gujarat-based Banas Dairy.
The high court will hear Baroda Dairy's case on Tuesday.
"We have moved the HC as our bye-laws do not permit us to hold elections based on taluka-wise constituency. We follow general constituency for elections which provides equal opportunities to all the village level milk societies associated with us," Baroda Dairy's chairman Narendra Patel alias Mukhi said on Monday.
Amul Dairy and Vasudhara Dairy too have challenged the state cooperative registrar's missive on same grounds.
Amul and Vasudhara dairies have challenged the cooperative registrar's directives saying that their bye-laws differ from the by-laws and election rules of Banas Dairy which are not applicable to them.
Gujarat HC had directed Banas Dairy in November last to give equal representation to all the constituencies of the district after a couple of milk cooperatives connected to the dairy had challenged the discrepancy in the election of its board because of which while some talukas of the district were given three and two seats each, other talukas were given only one seat.
As a result, all talukas of the district were not getting equal representation in the cooperative body.
A high court bench had directed Banas Dairy to comply with the instructions of the cooperatives registrar and give equal representation to all constituencies of the Banaskantha district.
Amul Dairy has argued that its bye-laws have provisions of two constituencies - general and individual members and it follows 'one voter one vote' rule through which 12 members from general constituency are elected in its board. Vasudhara Dairy on its part has argued that if it goes for taluka-wise representation, those talukas which have a large number of village-level milk societies registered with it will suffer.