Q.Explain the procedure for the formation and registration of a co-operative society under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960.

This is the central question of the chapter, and the clearest way to answer it is as three ordered stages — promotion, application, and registration.

The procedure for the formation and registration of a co-operative society under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 is best explained as three ordered stages: promotion, application, and registration. Understanding it this way makes it easy to remember and mirrors how the process actually unfolds.

The first stage is promotion, or the preliminary stage. A group of persons who share a common economic need — at least ten eligible individuals for a society of individuals, or at least five societies for a federal society, as required by Section 6 — come together and hold a preliminary meeting. At this meeting they resolve to form a society and take the founding decisions: they fix the objects of the society and the type of society it will be, decide its proposed name and area of operation, choose whether it will have limited or unlimited liability, and elect a Chief Promoter, authorising him by resolution to carry out the registration formalities. The Chief Promoter then reserves the proposed name with the Registrar, opens a bank account in the name of the proposed society and collects the members' share money and entrance fees into it, and arranges for the bye-laws to be drafted, usually by adapting the model bye-laws for that class of society.

The second stage is the application for registration, governed by Section 8. The Chief Promoter (with the other required signatories) makes an application to the Registrar of Co-operative Societies in the prescribed form. Where all members are individuals, the application must be signed by at least ten qualified persons; for a federal society, by a duly authorised person on behalf of each member-society. The application must be accompanied by copies of the proposed bye-laws, and is normally submitted along with supporting documents — a list of subscribers to the share capital, a bank certificate showing the capital and entrance fees deposited, a statement of the society's economic viability, the resolution appointing the Chief Promoter, details of the name and area of operation, and proof of payment of the prescribed registration fee. …