THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. RAMULU Thursday, 6th July,2006 W.P.No.19951 of 2005 Between : A. Pedda Gangaiah … Petitioner and The Collector (Co-operation), Nizamabad District, Nizamabad and others … Respondents THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. RAMULU W.P.No.19951 of 2005 ORAL ORDER: Heard both sides. By invoking the powers under Section 15 of the Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act,1964 (for short ‘the Act’), respondent No.1 issued a preliminary notification dated 21-6-2005 proposing to merge the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Society, Chinna Mallareddy with Kamareddy PACS, since the said society was identified as non-viable society. Thereafter, on receiving objections and considering the same, final order was passed on 25-7-2005 merging Chinna Mallareddy PACS with Kamareddy PACS. The grievance of the petitioners is that the Society has satisfied three norms out of six norms; therefore, the question of unviability of the society does not arise and there is no question of merging the Chinna Mallareddy PACS with Kamareddy PACS. Further, Kamareddy PACS is about 12 Kilometres away from the petitioners’ society and also comparing to the other society, it is financially more viable, but all these things were not taken into consideration by the authorities and passed the impugned Order. A detailed counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of respondents 1 and 2 stating that the Government felt the need for restructuring of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies after indepth examination of various committee reports among which the Task Force Committee headed by Prof. A.Vaidyanathan and the Expert committee headed by P.V.A. Rama Rao and formulated and approved a scheme that enables the identification of viable and non- viable societies by the competent authority, i.e. District Collector and as per the guidelines issued in G.O.Ms.No.176 Agriculture and Cooperation (Coop.V) Department, dated 14-6-2005, the District Collector is the competent authority to identify the viable and non-viable societies Mandal-wise and take action as per the provisions of Section 15-A of the Act read with Rule 11-A of the A.P. Cooperative Societies Rules. In pursuance of that, a preliminary notification and after inviting objections, a final notification, as noticed above, were issued. The objections received from the society could not be considered as the objection of treating the society as viable and the members willingness to continue the society are not in confirmity with the conditions of G.O.Ms.No.176, dated 14-6-2005. PACS, Kamareddy was identified as a focal non-viable society duly merging the petitioners’ society i.e. Chinna Mallareddy PACS, Devanpally PACS and Gargul PACS with it. The power of the 1st respondent is not under challenge nor the guidelines issued under G.O.Ms.no.176, dated 14-6-2005 are under challenge. The only grievance is that the objections filed by the petitioners were not properly considered by the 1st respondent. Once the petitioners’ society is a non-viable society, the Collector (1st respondent) while exercising his discretionary powers as vested under Section 15-A of the Act, has passed the impugned Order. I am of the considered opinion that the respondents have not committed any error in coming to the conclusion that the petitioners’ society should be merged with Kamareddy PACS. The Writ Petition is devoid of merit and liable to be dismissed. Accordingly, the Writ Petition is dismissed. No order as to costs. 06-7-2006 prk