Sudipto Basumallick
I live in a CHS in Navi Mumbai with 125 members. We have a MC which has been doing extremely good work for past 4 years, investing their private time. Their term is scheduled till 2015 March.
However a group of members having some vested interest are always trying to put this MC into trouble by creating issues and promoting groupism.
With this the MC team is so fed up that they want to call AGM/SGM and resign enmasse. However there is now some rule that existing committees will have to hold on till dec2014. Hence they are not clear what to do? What happens if they now suddenly resign? Will our CHS governance go to government?
Is there any way they can resign and elect a new team?
I C Naik
The situation you are facing in your cooperative housing society is not an exception neither it is a rule.
The Government of the State of Maharashtra has been flouting the Constitutional Mandate enshrined in the Constitution of India through the Constitution ( 97th Amendment ) Act 2011 (97CAA). This has created a lot of confusion in the minds of management of cooperative housing societies in the State. Every society has to try to attend management crisis with lot of patience and many members who were indifferent to management of the affairs of their cooperative housing societies have to come forward in such situations.
The Maharashtra Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act 2013 (the Amending Act) has by committing contempt of a Constitutional Mandate by not constituting the SCEA (State Cooperative Election Authority) given indefinite extension to those committees which have surpassed the tenure of 5 years also.[New Sub-Section 4 of Section 166 of the M C S Act 1960].
No cooperative housing society can conduct election now as all election Rules applicable to cooperative housing societies are already superseded by the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Election to Committee Rules, 2013 issued by the State Government on 20th August 2013.
The Constitutional Mandate bans State to appoint Government employee to manage a cooperative housing society even in grave crisis and the members have to find solutions to any crisis in their management.
In the Amending Act, the State has circumvent this ban by re-christening “the Administrator” as “the Authorized Person” in Section 77A of the M C S Act 1960- an act of abuse of the this term coined under the Constitution ( 97th Amendment ) Act 2011.
If the managing committee resigns en-mass this Authorized Person can send someone to manage your society. So consider that situation with in a group of sincere and well meaning members as to how this Authorized Person can be prevented to send some government officer to manage your society.
I have suggested a course of action in one Thane based society through an answer to 3 questions raised by one frequent visitor to site, namely Mr Shankar Nair which faced exactly the same situation.
Let the whole Committee resign except two members. Within the sincere group by consensus identify the members ready to join the committee to look after society’s interest. The two members continuing on committee can co-opt the rest and fill up committee. Later these two can also resign and two more can be co-opted. The Committee can be beneficially expanded by co-opting two more members as Expert Committee Members” and two women members if there is none.