Taxi co-op voting row gets heated
Catherine Harris
The director of a taxi co-operative who allegedly interfered with a shareholder’s vote has been denied leave by the court to challenge his lost membership.
The High Court at Auckland dismissed an application for a judicial review into the Auckland Cooperative Taxi Society’s decision to remove the membership of one of its directors, Harpreet Bhullar.
Bhullar became a member of the society and 10 years later joined the board.
However, in August 2017 there was an incident at the society’s headquarters, Taxi House, involving Bhullar, another taxi driver Gurpreet Singh and Kevin Myers, a society compliance officer.
The day before a board election, Singh went to Myers’ office to ask if he was eligible to vote, having bought a share in the society a few days earlier.
Myers’ view was that he was, but during the discussion Bhullar came into Myers’ office and according to the society, interfered in the discussion regarding Singh casting a special vote.
Myers alleged that Bhullar shouted at the shareholder, refused to leave when asked and forced a door open as Myers tried to close it.
He was allegedly removed from Myers’ office but remained on the premises, shouting and accusing the electoral officers of forcing shareholders to vote against their will.
The shareholder left without completing the voting process.
Bhullar denied the allegations, but the board decided at a hearing that Bhullar had broken its rules on influencing the voting process, and later revoked his membership.
Bhullar asked the court to challenge the society’s decision on several counts.
He argued that there were factions within the society, and that he was challenging one of its rules about chairmanship tenure when the incident occurred.
He said the hearing was ‘‘a disproportionate response’’ and that the board’s focus was not on the allegations but on trying to get rid of him.
But in her ruling, Justice Christine Gordon said Bhullar had not proved his case and she was dismissing his application.