A Registrar, an Arbitration Court and an Audit Director: the State law that governs Kerala's co-operative societies

Background

Co-Keralam, planned as India's first airline in the co-operative sector, is moving to hand its registration certificate and bylaws to the State government, with about 200 co-operative societies expected to put in ₹2 crore each. Every co-operative society in the State lives under one law. The Kerala Cooperative Societies Act, 1969, Act 21 of 1969, consolidates, amends and unifies the law on co-operative societies in Kerala, and a society means one registered or deemed to be registered under it. Section 3 lets the Government appoint a Registrar of Cooperative Societies for the State, and the Registrar's powers can be conferred on others. A society whose area of operation is the whole State, whose members are only other societies with similar objects, and which the Registrar declares as such, is an apex society; one with jurisdiction over one or more revenue districts but not the whole State, again with only societies as members, is a central society. Elections inside the sector are run by a State Co-operative Election Commission constituted under Section 28B, of not more than three members, its State Chief Co-operative Election Commissioner an officer not below the rank of Special Secretary to Government. Audit is in the hands of a Director of Co-operative Audit with jurisdiction over the whole State, who works under the Registrar, and the audit report of an apex society is laid by the Government before the Legislative Assembly. Disputes go to a Co-operative Arbitration Court under Section 70A, with a Tribunal under Section 81 above it.