Bombay HC Quashes Registrar’s Order Allowing Independent Shop Society without bifurcation of existing society
Sections 9, 17 and 18 of the MC Societies – Bifurcation & Separate Society for shop owners
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.
Judgment dated 12.2.2026 in Writ Petition No.3541 of 2015 of Sarita Cooperative Housing Society Ltd Vs. The Minister for Cooperation & Textile Department and others with connected matters.
