Overview
- The Supreme Court bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan, ruling Friday, set aside Rajasthan High Court orders against district milk unions' election rules.
- The court said the rights to vote and to run for office are created by statute and can be limited by law.
- It treated the challenged rules as eligibility thresholds, such as minimum days and quantity of milk supplied, not as disqualifications.
- The bench held that cooperative societies are not 'State' under Article 12, so high courts should not use writs to police their internal elections.
- Members must take disputes to the Registrar and appellate bodies named in the Rajasthan Cooperative Societies Act, a shift that could shape similar fights across co‑ops.