HC stays GO on DCMS appointments

Hyderabad:Justice Kaja Sarath of the Telangana High Court has directed the state government to continue or appoint the erstwhile board of directors/managing committees of the District Cooperative Marketing Societies in the respective erstwhile combined districts, except Khammam, as the person-in-charge committees of the societies. The court also issued interim orders suspending GO 75 of the agriculture and cooperation department, dated February 14, through which the principal secretary of the department had appointed the additional collector of each district as the person-in-charge committee for the respective DCMSs for six months or until further government orders. The order came in response to eight petitions filed by outgoing DCMS committees from eight erstwhile districts, challenging the government order and its consequential directives. Senior counsel R. Hemendranath Reddy, representing the petitioners, argued that the department had acted with bias by granting an extension to the outgoing committees of primary agriculture cooperative societies, district Cooperative Central Banks and the Telangana State Cooperative Apex Bank, whose tenure also ended on February 28, while arbitrarily denying the same benefit to the elected board of directors of the DCMSs.