Society cannot appoint lawyer without General Body sanction

 Hello Sir,

My dad had asked for documents pertaining to the society and other information. There were 23 queries. The society asked my dad to ask all queries separately and not in one go and refused to provide the needed information like Fire Insurance, Structural Audit report, minutes of AGM etc, and other documents. Finally after a year of asking and constant harrassment from the Deputy registrar as well as the society, he filed complaints in the consumer court. so 23 queries became 23 cases for deficieny of service for not providing documents as per the bye-laws and laws of the MCSA.

Now, my dad passed away in 2021 and a new committee was formed later this year in 2022. I received all the required documents from the new committee and accordingly withdrew the cases.

Now, the new committee raised the issue of legal fees incurred and the general body has passed a resolution in our absence in a special general body meeting, that all legal fees which they incurred around 4 lakhs must be recovered from my family, because the members of the society do not want to pay it. We couldn't attend the meeting because the membership has not yet been transferred to the nominee (my mother).

What can I do? What are my options? Please guide me. This is a biased resolution, as the previous committee did not provide the documents and they are jointly and severally responsible. In good faith, as soon as I received all the documents, we withdrew all cases.

The court has not mentioned about any costs imposed or to be paid to the society in the final judgement. The society has passed this illegal resolution as per their whims and fancies. Please help.

Ans : Society cannot appoint an advocate, till his appointment for the purpose is passed in the General Body Meeting of the Society. Also appointment of an advocate is to be passed with his fees, in the General Body Meeting of the Society, by 75% of the members.

Even when his fees is also passed, fees is equally shared by all the members, and not to be collected from the member, who has made to court case. All these procedures are not followed by the previous committee members. Therefore, that legal fees Rs.4 lakhs should be collected from the pocket of previous committee members.

For asking you to to pay that wrong charges by present managing committee, under Bye-law No. 174(A)(xxii), make a complaint against the managing committee of your society to the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies of your area.