Co-operative society records under RTI — Gujarat HC 2019

Co-operative societies substantially financed by government are §2[h] public authorities; purely member-run societies are not.

Substantial-finance test from Thalappalam applies to Gujarat co-operatives.

Co-operative societies substantially financed by government are §2(h) public authorities; purely member-run societies are not.

Applying the Supreme Court test in Thalappalam Service Co-op. Bank v. State of Kerala (2013), the Court held that a co-operative society is a §2(h)(d)(i) public authority only where there is substantial government financing or control. Mere registration under the Co-operative Societies Act does not by itself trigger §2(h). Where societies receive continuing budgetary support or their Board is state-nominated, they come within the Act. The petitioner society here did not meet the threshold and was outside §2(h).

section 2(h), co-operative society, Thalappalam, substantial financing, Gujarat

These rulings have the closest editorial ratio to this case — computed by tf-idf cosine similarity over ratio, keywords and Act sections. Useful starting points if you are researching the same point of law.

• Urban Co-operative Bank records — Karnataka HC 2024 (HC-KAR 2024)
• Cooperative societies — Karnataka HC (HC-KAR 2019)
• Thalappalam Service Coop Bank v. State of Kerala (SC 2013)
• D.A.V. College Trust and Management Society v. Director of Public Instructions (SC 2019)
• Charitable trusts receiving State grants — CIC (CIC 2017)

• All Gujarat High Court rulings in the corpus
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• PIO RTI Reply Guide
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• External reported text →

Editorial summary · last reviewed 21 April 2026.