Context: The Supreme Court (SC) struck down certain provisions of the Constitution (97th Amendment) Act, 2011 to the extent it introduced Part IX B in the Constitution to deal with co-operative societies.
Background

• The ruling came from a 3 Judge bench of SC, which upheld a 2013 Gujarat High Court verdict that struck down parts of the amendment.
• The Gujarat High Court had held that the amendment, to the extent it introduced conditions for state laws on co-operative societies, was liable to be struck down as it was passed without the ratification of one-half of the state legislatures as mandated by Article 368(2) of the Constitution.
• As per Article 368(2), ratification of one-half of state legislatures is required for an amendment that makes changes to an entry in the state list.
• Since co-operative societies was a state subject as per Entry 32 in List II of the Seventh Schedule, the amendment introducing Part IX B required ratification as per Article 368(2), the High Court ruled.

Reasons to struck down the 97th Constitutional Amendment provisions

• The 3-judge bench unanimously held that the 97th Constitutional Amendment required ratification by at least one-half of the state legislatures as per Article 368(2) of the Constitution, since it dealt with an entry which was an exclusive state subject (co-operative societies).
• Since such ratification was not done in the case of the 97th Constitutional amendment, it was liable to be struck down.
• Now, it is declared that Part IXB of the Constitution of India is operative only in so far as it concerns multi-State co-operative societies both within the various States and in the Union territories of India.

The top court had said if the Centre wanted to achieve uniformity then the only way available was to take the recourse under Article 252 of the Constitution.

• It deals with the power of Parliament to legislate for two or more states by consent.
• It said that in effect what the government had done was that the power of States to enact laws with respect to cooperative society has been made no longer exclusive.
• The high court had held that certain provisions of the amendment pertaining to cooperative societies violated the basic structure of federalism.

Union’s stand

• The Centre justified they were injecting ‘professionalism’ and autonomy into the functioning of the societies. 
• Lack of accountability by the members has led to poor services and low productivity. Even elections are not held on time. 
• Co-operatives need to run on “well-established democratic principles”, the government argued in the apex court.

97th Amendment 

• The 97th constitutional amendment, which dealt with issues related to the effective management of cooperative societies in the country.
• It was passed by Parliament in December 2011 and had come into effect from February 15, 2012.
• Part IXB, introduced in the Constitution through the 97th Amendment of 2012, dictated the terms for running cooperative societies.
• The provisions in the amendment went to the extent of determining the number of directors a society should have or their length of tenure and even the necessary expertise.