Housing societies can conduct elections if less than 200 members

By Maharashtra Bureau

MUMBAI:

Now, the housing society can self-conduct elections of the committee if the society has less than or up to 200 Members, according to Maharashtra Co-operative Societies (Third Amendment) Act, 2018.

“The Governor of Maharashtra was satisfied that circumstances existed which rendered it necessary for him to take immediate action further to amend the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960”, the official document said.

It is been seen that a separate chapter 154B is been introduce in the said Act with 31 clauses.

“The uniform application of the provisions of the said Act, despite the uniqueness of the co-operative housing societies, is creating problems and is inadequate to address all the affairs of the co-operative housing societies. This leads to a large number of disputes and litigation and thus creates hurdles in the smooth functioning of the co-operative housing societies. In this view of the scenario, an urgent need is felt to provide a separate Chapter to cater to the specific requirements of the co-operative housing societies. Therefore a separate Chapter providing for regulation of co-operative housing societies is being proposed to be inserted in the said Act”, a statement said.

The proposed Chapter, among other things, would cater primarily to the issues of the co-operative housing societies viz. members and their rights, management of societies, audit, enquiry and inspection, settlement of disputes, liquidation, elections of societies, recovery of claims, etc, it added.

The ordinance said if any officer or past officer a Member or past Member of the Committee of the housing society fails to supply the copies of the documents as provided under sub-section (2) of section 154B-8 and found to be offence, a penalty of Rs 25,000 will be levied.

There are few sections and clauses which will not apply to the society Act, according to the amendment this includes sections 111 to 144-1A.

In the present dispensation, considerable delay is caused in approval and appointment of Returning Officer and Assistant Returning Officer for conducting elections of co-operative housing societies. To avoid this delay and to ensure timely elections, it is proposed to amend sub-section (11) of section 73CB of the said Act, suitably, by taking the power to the State Government to prescribe by rules the procedure for a speedy holding of such elections, an official statement said.

The provisions related to a recovery of dues or arrears from members are proposed to be deleted from the general provisions meant for all societies in sub-section (1) of section 101 so as to provide relevant provisions in this regard in the proposed Chapter XIIIB.

The incorporation of the provisions along with other proposed provisions would help the members of the societies in the understanding of their rights and liabilities, thereby enabling a more congenial governance environment within the co-operative housing societies. The clarity in the various proposed provisions would minimize the disputes and result in enhancing the efficiency of the authorities dealing with the affairs of the co-operative housing societies. Similarly, the simplified mechanism proposed for elections would drastically reduce the election-related disputes in the otherwise resource crunched co-operative housing societies, it added.