Overview

A co-operative society is not just a group of people who decide to work together; the moment it is registered it becomes a legal body with rights and duties, and everything it does — how it is formed, who may join it, how it is managed, how its money is audited, and how quarrels among its members are settled — is governed by a special law. In Maharashtra that law is the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, together with the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961 made under it. Because Maharashtra has the largest and most active co-operative sector in India — covering sugar, credit, banking, milk, housing, and consumer societies — this Act is one of the most important commercial laws a student of Co-operation must understand.

The Act was passed by the State Legislature in 1960 and came into force on 26 January 1962. It replaced the older laws that had applied earlier (chiefly the Bombay Co-operative Societies Act, 1925) and brought the whole co-operative movement of the reorganised State of Maharashtra under a single, uniform law. Over the years it has been amended many times to keep pace with changing needs — the most far-reaching change coming after the 97th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2011, which gave co-operative societies a special place in the Constitution itself.

This chapter studies the Act under the headings a Std XII student is expected to know: its objectives and scope; the procedure and rules for registration; the provisions about membership; the machinery of management (the general body and the committee); the provisions for audit, inquiry and inspection; the settlement of disputes and the recovery of dues; and finally the amendments to the Act, with special attention to the impact of the 97th Constitutional Amendment. The subject draws on the same general principles of company and commercial law — a registered body corporate, democratic control, statutory audit, and legal settlement of disputes — that govern other forms of business organisation, applied here to the special character of a co-operative society.