Maharashtra: Skip general body meetings, lose housing society rights

Housing society members, who are habitually absent from society meetings, maybe in for some bad news even as the government prepares to curb the fundamental rights of these flat owners. In a recent order by the state commissioner for cooperation and registrar of cooperative societies issued to all the divisional and district deputy registrar of cooperative housing societies asking for such habitually absent members as ‘inactive’. The order says that any member, who continues to skip the general body meetings for five consecutive years, will also lose the right to cast his vote during society elections as well as the right to contest the election. The order is an outcome of a recent amendment in section 26 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960. Cooperation commissioner Vijay Zade, in his order, says, “It is mandatory to attend at least one general body meeting as per the section (2) of the Act. During these five years the members must have communication at least once in any form with the society. Absence of both the conditions will compel the society’s management committee to declare such member as ‘inactive’.”