‘Society’s office-bearers kept us in dark for the past 10 years’

No cooperative society can refuse to share information with its members according to the state housing federation Officebearers who do not share information with members within 45 days also face a daily penalty of R100 A new amendment to the Maharashtra CoOperative Societies MCS Act also has provisions for the disqualification of nontransparent committeesUnaware of this residents of Indian Airlines Gagan Vihar CHS Ltd at JB Nagar Andheri East have been allegedly suffering for over a decade Most occupants of the buildingrsquos 40 flats are retired Indian Airlines employees who had bought the land and constructed the groundplusfourstorey structure in the early 1980s Today the society also has a few private ownersResidents claim that they have been deprived of their right to seek information and question officebearers about the societyrsquos daytoday functioning and are also not being allowed to examine society documents Mandatory yearly annual general body meetings have also not been held in the last three years they allegedAlso read Mumbai Dman takes campaign route to threaten housing society members in MaladLetters that were sent to the societyrsquos officebearersVinay Rao a resident said ldquoWe have been asking for copies of audited balance sheets minutes of meetings society bank passbooks copies of profit and loss accounts and the list of outstanding defaulters but our requests have never ever been adhered to by the officebearers We are paying monthly maintenance of approximate Rs 2000 and Rs 3500 for 1BHK flats and 2BHK flats respectively but our building has not been repaired and is in a bad conditionrdquoHe added that the society lacks basic requirements like CCTV cameras and firefighting equipment and that a small green patch is not being maintained ldquoWe even tried to send request letters via registered mail Letters that were accepted by the society were never replied to and those that were not were returned to us by the postal departmentrdquo Rao addedAsked the reason for the state of affairs Rao said most society members were senior citizens who preferred to stay indoors and by default the officebearers had been unchanged for over a decade ldquoWith talks of redevelopment underway the officebearers are not speaking out openly about their talks with contractors and builders which is causing concern and ambiguity in residentsrsquo mindsrdquo he addedAccording to Rao most of the residents have given their flats out on rent leaving a small number of owners on the premises and the officebearers were taking advantage of the situation he alleged ldquoWe had even sought the deputy registrar of cooperative societiesrsquo intervention but the request is pendingrdquo he saidAsked if he was aware of the latest amendment to the MCS Act Rao replied in the negative stating ldquoWe are unaware about this but we had resorted to the RTI Right to Information Act through the registrar asking for specific documents but this too did not yield any resultrdquo Attempts to contact the officebearers did not prove fruitful Society canrsquot deny infoChartered accountant Ramesh Prabhu founderchairman of Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association MahaSeWA said ldquoMany societies are not transparent when it comes to sharing information with its members Therefore the MCS Act was amended by inserting section 154B8 which provides the right to every society member to inspect documentsOffence under MCS ActNot providing information slated under 154B8 is considered an offence of section 146 of the MCS Act and accordingly clause 146 p2 has been inserted in section 146 which reads that if any officer or past officer or member or member of the committee of the housing society fails to supply copies of the document as provided under section 154B8 they will be committing an offence us 147 explained PrabhuPenalty from own pocketIf the information sought is not provided within the stipulated time period and once the officebearers are found guilty under section 147 p2 they are liable to pay a fine of Rs 100 per day after the expiry of 45 days and this may extend up to R5000 The amount must be paid from the officebearersrsquo pockets and not the society fund Prabhu addedDisqualification provisionAccording to Prabhu as per provisions of section 154B231i not providing information sought by members will also lead to a fiveyear disqualification of the said committee members from contesting the society polls and the registrar can also dissolve the existing committee abruptly and can even appoint an adminsirator ldquoThe idea behind this amendment is to bring transparency and thereby better governance in societies irrespective of the size of its membershiprdquo said PrabhuExpertrsquos viewAdvocate Shreeprasad Parab expert director state housing federation said ldquoThe aim of the managing committee is to provide common amenities and services to members of the housing society However in many housing societies officebearers consider themselves to be uperior and take undue advantage of their position Unfortunately residents are not wellversed with their rights and continue to be ignorant about provisions and latest amendments in lawrdquo He added that the state housing federation has now directed district housing federations to impart training programmes to educate members about these provisions198485Year building came up in Andheri East