Chennai: Plea filed asking Tamil Nadu State Cooperative Societies EC to upload data
Chennai: A public interest litigation has been filed in the Madras high court to direct the Tamil Nadu State Cooperative Societies Election Commission (TNSCSEC) to upload the members list, voters list, nominations, their scrutiny and results in its website.
A division bench comprising Justices T.S.Sivagnanam and M.Seshasayee before whom the PIL filed by V.R.Annamalai, presently functioning as a president of Uthiramerur Town Cooperative society in Kancheepuram district, came up for hearing, directed the counsel for the TNSCSEC to get instructions and posted the matter to April 13.
Petitioner’s counsel E.Vijay Anand submitted that in order to ensure free and fair election, the Election Commission of India was adopting a procedure thereby entire process of election was being uploaded in its website. In same lines, the TNSCSEC, which was an independent body constituted pursuant to the 97th constitutional amendment can upload the entire Cooperative Societies election in its website so as to ensure transparency and conduct of free and fair election.
The petitioner reliably learnt that there were large scale malpractice and entire election was done in an undemocratic manner without any transparency in so far as the first and second phase election was concerned. There were lots of petitions filed before the Madras high court, challenging the entire election process, he added.
He said the cooperative society was a constitutionally recognized body and any tampering by state amounts to denying constitutional right. As per Article 43 B, it was state’s endeavour to promote autonomous functioning, democratic control and professional management of cooperative society. Hence a constitutional duty was cast on the state to execute its duty in a manner known to law.
The entire present election process was undemocratic, illegal, biased and wanted to favour the ruling party. The commission being an independent body should ensure free and fair election, which can only be achieved if the entire election was done in a transparent manner. This can be achieved only by uploading the entire election process. Therefore, the petitioner has filed the present petition, Vijay Anand added.
