Bombay HC Upholds Five-Year Disqualification of Society Committee for Withholding Records

The Bombay High Court has dismissed a petition filed by the managing committee members of R-Euphoria Phase II Co-operative Housing Society, upholding their disqualification for five years. The case, Shahid Tamboli and Ors v. Divisional Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies, was reported on 23 October 2026. The committee had failed to supply documents a member asked for.

What the case was about

A member requested society records on 24 October 2019. The District Deputy Registrar disqualified the committee on 8 April 2021, and the Divisional Joint Registrar upheld that order on 4 February 2022. The society claimed it had posted the documents on 22 October 2019, before the request was even made. The court reportedly described this as an evidently untrue stand.

The legal provisions involved

Section 154B-8(2) of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 requires a society to provide the documents a member asks for within 45 days, or 30 days where the society receives government assistance. Section 154B-23(1)(iii) makes failure to comply a ground for disqualification, and Section 154B-23(3) bars the disqualified committee members for five years.

The committee argued that the 45-day limit is only directory (advisory) and that substantial compliance should be enough. According to the report, the court rejected both arguments, dismissed the petition and made no order on costs. Details of the full reasoning were not available from the source page, so committees should read the judgment itself.

What this means for housing societies

• Treat every written member request for records as time-bound: the 45-day clock (30 days for societies with government assistance) starts from the request.
• Keep proof of delivery, such as acknowledgement receipts, courier records or dated registered post slips, and make sure the dates are accurate.
• Courts and Registrars may not accept late or approximate compliance as 'substantial compliance'.
• The penalty falls on individual committee members, who can be barred from committee service for five years.

Managing committees should log all record requests with dates, assign someone to respond, and send the documents well inside the statutory window.