Transparency is the foundation of democratic functioning in any co-operative housing society. The Managing Committee is elected not to control information, but to administer the affairs of the society in a fair and open manner for the benefit of all its members. In a recent and significant judgment, the Bombay High Court has clarified that refusal to provide information to members can lead to serious legal consequences, including disqualification of committee members and even removal of the entire Managing Committee.

This ruling is extremely relevant for housing societies in Pune, where disputes between members and managing committees regarding access to records such as meeting minutes, financial documents, and resolutions are increasingly common.

Right of Members to Access Society Information

Under Section 154B-8 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, every member of a co-operative housing society has a legal right to:

• Inspect society documents free of cost during office hours, and

• Obtain copies of records such as:

  • Minutes of Managing Committee meetings

  • General Body Meeting minutes

  • Member registers

  • Audited financial statements

  • Society bye-laws

This right is not discretionary. Once a member makes a written request and expresses willingness to pay the prescribed copying charges, the Managing Committee is duty-bound to provide the requested documents within the legally prescribed time.

In the present case, a society member had requested copies of Managing Committee meeting minutes from October 2022 onwards. Despite repeated written reminders and intervention by the office of the District Deputy Registrar, Pune, the Managing Committee failed to provide the requested documents within the stipulated time.

Refusal to Provide Information to Members Can Lead to Disqualification

The Managing Committee argued before the Court that copies were supplied after payment of copying charges and therefore no breach had occurred. However, the Court observed that the member had repeatedly expressed readiness to pay the charges, but the Society failed to communicate the payable amount for several months.

More importantly, the Registrar had already passed a clear direction requiring the society to supply the documents within seven days. The Managing Committee failed to comply with this lawful direction and supplied the documents only after show cause proceedings had been initiated against them.

The Court held that:

Refusal or delay in providing information to members amounts to a breach of statutory duty under Section 154B-8.

Such a breach attracts consequences under Section 154B-23, which provides for disqualification of committee members who fail to perform their statutory obligations.

Disqualification of Chairman and Entire Managing Committee

A key issue before the Court was whether action should be taken only against the Secretary or Chairman responsible for maintaining records, or against the entire Managing Committee.

The Court clarified that:

• Supplying documents to members is not merely an administrative task.

• It is a statutory duty of the Managing Committee as a collective body.

• The committee functions on the principle of collective responsibility.

Therefore, unless the society bye-laws clearly assign this responsibility to a specific individual officer, the entire committee can be held liable for non-compliance.

In this case:

• Repeated requests for documents were ignored for months.

• No member of the Managing Committee took steps to ensure compliance.

• The requested documents were minutes of the Committee’s own meetings.

Accordingly, the Court upheld the disqualification of the entire Managing Committee, including the Chairman, for failure to provide information to members.