One Building, One Society – Shops Cannot have separate Society without legal division – Rules Bombay HC

The building “G-Sarita” consisting of ground floor and six upper floors. The building consists of 56 flats and 10 shops.  On the ground floor, there are 10 commercial shops and 8 residential flats with common structural framework and sharing a common wall.  The entire construction of shops and flats is in the same building and is interlinked structurally and constitutes one composite and integrated building.

The petitioner society was registered on 30.1.1986.  For more than two decades, the entire building stood governed by one registered society of the petitioner.

Subsequently, the shop owners had resigned from the petitioner society and submitted proposal for separate society of 10 shops. 

The Deputy Registrar granted registration to the respondent no.4 society of shop owners.

In the absence of a statutory division of the existing society, the authorities could not have permitted registration of another society in respect of premises which already form part of a duly registered cooperative society. Registration under Section 9 cannot be used as a means to indirectly fragment an existing society. If such a course is permitted, it would defeat the scheme of the Act and create overlapping jurisdictions over the same property. The statute contemplates orderly formation, alteration, and division of societies through defined procedures. Those safeguards cannot be bypassed.

In my considered view, the authorities have failed to appreciate the legal effect of the prior registration of the petitioner society and the absence of any order under Sections 17 or 18. By treating a portion of the same building as an independent structure without a lawful process of bifurcation, the authorities have misdirected themselves in law. The result is that two societies now claim authority over different parts of one integrated building, which the statute does not contemplate without proper division. This approach amounts to a misapplication of the provisions of the MCS Act and has led to an erroneous exercise of jurisdiction. The impugned orders, therefore, cannot be allowed to stand

Judgment dated 12.2.2026 in Writ Petition No.3541 of 2015 of Sarita Cooperative Housing Society Ltd   Vs.  The Minister for Cooperation & Testile Department and others with connected matters.