Co-operative Election Authority
Also called: State Cooperative Election Authority, Article 243ZK · Topic: Statutory, Regulatory and Quasi-judicial Bodies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A Co-operative Election Authority is an independent body that runs elections to the boards of cooperative societies. It also prepares and checks the voter lists (electoral rolls). It comes from Article 243ZK, which the 97th Constitutional Amendment Act 2011 added in Part IX-B. Article 243ZK says the State legislature must give this job to an authority it sets up by law. The idea is that the people who gain from an election should not be the ones who run it.
After Union of India v. Rajendra N. Shah (2021), Part IX-B no longer binds State cooperatives. So whether a State has such a body, and what powers it has, now depends only on that State's own cooperative law. Part IX-B still applies to multi-State cooperative societies, which work in more than one State.
Example
The Multi-State Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill 2022, passed as the 2023 Act, set up a Co-operative Election Authority for multi-State cooperatives. It runs their board elections and checks their voter lists, so the board in power no longer controls its own election.
Don't confuse with
- State Election Commission (Article 243K): it runs elections to panchayats and municipalities, not to cooperative societies.
- Election Commission of India (Article 324): it runs elections to Parliament, State legislatures and the offices of President and Vice-President. It has no role in cooperative elections.