The Bombay High Court has struck
down the Registrar’s orders against Aether Co‑operative Housing Society (WRIT
PETITION (ST) NO.19688 OF 2025, decided on 10.12.2025), holding that
the Co-operative Registrar simply did not have the legal power to decide a
dispute about how maintenance was calculated and recovered from members.
Some flat owner members in the
Society went to the Deputy Registrar and complained that the Society had raised
maintenance bills in a way that went against its own bye‑laws. On that basis,
they asked for a declaration that the Society could not recover those disputed
maintenance amounts from them.
Acting on this complaint of some
members, the Deputy Registrar used Section 154B‑27 of the Maharashtra Co‑operative
Societies Act, 1960, along with Model Bye‑law 174 and ordered the Society to
refund the maintenance collected from May 2022 and issue fresh, revised bills. Being
aggrieved by this order, the Society filed an appeal with the higher authority, the Divisional Joint Registrar, who confirmed the Deputy Registrar's order as
correct, which is what prompted the Society to approach the High Court through
a writ petition.
The Society’s stand was
straightforward: Section 154B‑27 allows the Registrar to enforce duties that
already exist under the Act, Rules or bye‑laws, but it does not allow the
Registrar to sit as a judge and decide whether the Society’s maintenance levy
is legally correct. The disputing members, on the other hand, argued that Model
Bye‑law 174 gave the Registrar enough power to step in and effectively decide
the dispute about the bills.
How does the High Court read Section 154B‑27?
The Court carefully read Section
154B‑27 and pointed out that it is framed as an “enforcement” provision, not as
a dispute‑resolution clause. In simple terms, the Registrar can push a society
to follow the law and its bye‑laws, but cannot decide contested issues like
whether a particular maintenance demand is valid or what the correct accounts
between the Society and specific members should be.
To support this, the Court relied
on the Supreme Court’s decision in A.P.D. Jain Pathshala v. Shivaji
Bhagwat More, 2011 13 SCC 99, which says that adjudicatory powers must
come directly from the statute and cannot be created by executive directions or
bye‑laws. Since the Maharashtra Co‑operative Societies Act does not itself give
the Registrar adjudicatory powers under Section 154B‑27, the Court held that
Model Bye‑law 174 cannot be used to “add” such powers for deciding
member–society billing disputes.
On this basis, the Bombay High Court held that both the Registrar’s order and the revisional order suffered from a basic jurisdictional error and therefore could not stand in law. The Court quashed and set aside those orders and allowed the writ petition in terms of the Society’s main prayer, but also made it clear that the aggrieved members are still free to use any proper statutory remedy available to them before the appropriate co‑operative forum.
Comments
Post a Comment