Maharashtra GR puts small housing societies in a dilemma

Housing activists and state housing federation members are puzzled and irked with a recent government resolution GR pertaining to mandatory seats from the reserved category in the elected body of cooperative housing society with 35 members or lessWhile the government decision has brought down the minimum number of committee members from 11 to 5 the new circular has kept one seat for candidates from open category and remaining four seats are reserved SCST OBC VJNT and woman candidate The concern is how a committee would be formed when small societies with 35 members or less do not have members to contest from the reserved seatsActivists are now contemplating to take up the issue with the state cooperative minister principal secretary of cooperation and state commissioner of cooperation in the coming week Advocate Shreeprasad Parab expert director the Maharashtra State Housing Federation said ldquoThe government decision is restricted to only housing societies with 35 members or less and it is not applicable to societies with 100 members or less that means we are referring to about 25000 to 30000 from the 125000 registered housing societies in MaharashtrardquoAdvocate Parab said ldquoThe GR is unclear in the scenario if such a society has no members from the reserved category Will that mean that the society body be led by only one member from general category Or else administrators be appointed like it was done in the pastrdquo said ParabWhat if1 What if any of the above members from reserved category are not available then only one member could be elected from the general category as per this GR whereas the minimum quorum required is three2 What if any such housing society has declared the elections and the process has started where the members have filled their nomination forms ndash will the GR be applicable3 What if in a housing society the strength of the elected body has fallen below five then whether this GR will be applicable to such a housing societyldquoIn a political system if a group is not represented proportionately then its ability to influence policymaking is limited Therefore reservations are provided to make political justice and upliftment of all groups But while providing reservations the proportion shall be ascertained in such a manner that in majority of cases the elected body shall complete its tenure of five years with a smooth and proper administration of the societyrdquo said ParabSeparate chapter introducedCA Ramesh Prabhu founder Chairman of Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association MAHASeWA said ldquoConsidering the unique features of housing societies a separate chapter XIII B Section 154B1 to 154B31 for housing societies was included in the MCS 1960 effective from March 9 2019 The committee is constituted as per section 154B192 and despite gaining more than two thirds of the strength of the committees these seats from reserved category remain vacant in number of housing societies and it creates a immense challenge to constitute the committee This issue never gets resolved by the cooperative department because of their alleged nexus with the administratorrdquo ldquoSuch situations of impasse are rampantly witnessed in MMR region ndash Mumbai Thane Navi Mumbai and even Pune where administrators can get appointed perpetuallyrdquo said PrabhuQuorum for the committeeldquoConsidering the difficulties faced by cooperative housing societies in getting the candidates from reserved categories to constitute the committee the above new chapter on cooperative housing societies was introduced which provided that for the purpose of strength of the committee and quorum for the committee the vacant seats in reserved categories may be ignored In other words such seats will be filled only when candidates are available otherwise it should not affect the formation of the committee And the note clearly states that the majority of the Committee members in the office are considered as quorumrdquo said Prabhu However with the recent GR the housing societies cannot take benefit of the chapter introduced in 2019Difficult compositionldquoIn practice such composition in the CHS will be difficult and in the absence of members from reserved category the power will be concentrated in the hands of few managing committee members Having spent over three decades in the legal field my experience highlights a concerning trend where managing committee members often act highhandedly in contravention of the fundamental principle of cooperation As such concentration of power in the hands of a select few particularly in societies with lesser than 35 members and lacking representation from diverse groups like women ST SC and OBC risks fostering dictatorship and potential misuse and abuse of authorityrdquo said advocate Godfrey Pimenta trustee of Watchdog FoundationSolution ndash way forward ldquoEarlier rule was that a smaller housing society with less than hundred members were expected to have at least eleven committee members of which five were reserved seats and six were open seats however with the minimum number brought down to five the way to resolve the hurdle is to allow additional open category member to replace the reserved seats in case of smaller societies where such reservations is not available or possible We will be discussing the landmark case of Tilak Safalya Cooperative Housing Society with the concerned authorities during our meetingrdquo said advocate ParabCA Ramesh Prabhu has a different suggestion ldquoThe solution would be have three members from general category and four members from each of the reserved category and thus the committee will have seven positions The committee can be formed with minimum three members from general categoryrdquo said Prabhu