Your AGM agenda is missing three items

Most AGM agendas are last year's agenda with the dates changed. That is how the same three items go missing year after year — and each of them is something the Registrar, the auditor or a member can later ask about by name.

Bye-law 95 does not leave the agenda to the committee's judgment. It lists the business the Annual General Body Meeting shall transact, and the notice going out by 15 September under bye-law 99 should carry that list, item by item, in that order.

The eleven items, in order

1. 1Minutes. To read the minutes of the last AGM and of any Special General Body Meeting held since, and to note the action taken on them — bye-law 95(a). Attach the minutes; do not merely "confirm" them from the chair.
2. 2The Annual Report and the accounts. To receive the Committee's Annual Report on the preceding co-operative year, together with the statement of accounts in Form 'N' under Rule 62(1) — the Income and Expenditure account for the year and the Balance Sheet at its close — bye-law 95(b).
3. 3The Audit Report. To consider the Audit Report of the Statutory Auditor appointed under Section 75(2A) for the previous co-operative year — bye-law 95(c).
4. 4The Audit Rectification Report. To receive from the Committee the rectification report and the action taken on the auditor's objections — bye-law 95(d).
5. 5The Budget. To place the Annual Budget for the next financial year for consideration — bye-law 95(e).
6. 6The Auditor. To appoint the Statutory Auditor for the current year from the panel approved by the State Government — bye-law 95(f).
7. 7The Annual Return. To receive from the Committee the Annual Return under Sections 75(2) and 95(1)(b) — bye-law 95(g).
8. 8Matters needing the general body's sanction. Anything the Act, the Rules or the bye-laws reserve to the general body — bye-law 95(h). Each such matter is a separate, named item with its own draft resolution.
9. 9Communications. Important communications from the Registering Authority, the Statutory Auditor, Government, the Collector, the local authority or any competent authority — bye-law 95(i).
10. 10Elections. To declare the date and conduct of the election of the Committee, when due — bye-law 95(j).
11. 11Any other matter — with the permission of the Chair, after the regular agenda is over, and never a matter that itself requires proper notice — bye-law 95(k).

The three that go missing

The Audit Rectification Report — item 4. The auditor's report is tabled every year; the committee's answer to it rarely is. Bye-law 95(d) requires the Committee to place before the AGM what it has done about each objection. The Audit Rectification Register in Form 'O' that bye-law 141 requires the society to keep is the source. An AGM that receives the audit report and not the rectification report has done half of the item.

The Annual Return — item 7. This is the return to the Registrar under Sections 75(2) and 95(1)(b) of the Act — not the income-tax return, which is a separate filing on a separate date. Bye-law 95(g) requires the Committee to place it before the general body. Societies that file it without ever showing it to the members, or that have never filed it, discover the gap when the Registrar asks.

The election declaration — item 10. When the Committee's term is ending, the AGM is where the date and conduct of the election is declared under bye-law 95(j). A committee that wants to carry on quietly leaves this item off. That is the item members remember.

What travels with the notice

The agenda is a list; the members need the papers. By 15 September, every member should receive, with the notice under bye-law 99 and served under bye-law 162:

• •the notice itself, with date, time and place — and, for a hybrid meeting, the video platform and how to obtain the link under Rule 106C-13(3)
• •the agenda in the bye-law 95 order
• •the Committee's Annual Report
• •the statement of accounts in Form 'N' — Income and Expenditure, and Balance Sheet
• •the Audit Report for the previous co-operative year
• •the Audit Rectification Report
• •the Annual Budget for the next year
• •the draft resolutions for every item under 95(h)

The audit is the gate. Bye-law 151(b) makes it the Committee's responsibility to have the accounts audited within six months of the close of the financial year and in any case before the notice of the AGM is issued. Under Section 81 the auditor submits the report; the society tables it. A notice issued while the audit is still running has been issued in breach of bye-law 151(b), and the AGM it convenes cannot transact items 3 and 4.

The auditor: three rules in one bye-law

Bye-law 151 governs item 6, and it is stricter than most committees remember:

• •the auditor is appointed by the general body, from the State Government's approved panel — not by the committee, and not from outside the panel (151(a));
• •the same auditor cannot be appointed for more than two consecutive years (151(a)), so an AGM that re-appoints the auditor for a third year has passed a resolution the bye-law does not permit;
• •the auditor's remuneration is fixed by the general body (151(c)), and should be in the resolution, not left to the committee.

A society may also appoint an internal auditor at the AGM if it considers one necessary (151(d)).

"Any other business" — what it can and cannot carry

Bye-law 95(k) is where AGMs are most often challenged. Any other matter may be taken up with the permission of the Chair, after the regular agenda — but not a matter that requires proper notice. A bye-law amendment, expulsion of a member, redevelopment, a change in the sinking-fund policy, a levy outside the budget: each of these needs its own notice and its own item. Passed under "any other business" with the Chair's permission, the resolution is passed without notice, and a member who was not told it was coming has the beginning of a good complaint.

The safe rule is short. If a member would have wanted to know it was on the agenda before deciding whether to attend, it needs notice.

What your committee should do this week

1. 1Rebuild the agenda from bye-law 95(a) to (k), in that order, rather than from last year's copy.
2. 2Confirm with the auditor, in writing, the date the audit report will be in the society's hands — it must precede the notice.
3. 3Prepare the Audit Rectification Report from the Form 'O' register, objection by objection.
4. 4Locate the Annual Return under Sections 75(2) and 95(1)(b); if it has not been prepared, prepare it now.
5. 5Check the auditor's tenure: if this is the third consecutive year, the AGM must appoint a different auditor from the panel.
6. 6Write a draft resolution for every item under 95(h), and move anything that needs notice out of "any other business" and onto the agenda.
7. 7Assemble the pack — notice, agenda, report, Form 'N' accounts, audit report, rectification report, budget — and dispatch it by 15 September, with the dispatch record.

So — which three items?

The rectification report, the annual return and the election declaration. None of them is glamorous, which is why they fall off. Each of them is a specific requirement of bye-law 95, each of them has a specific person who will one day ask for it — the auditor, the Registrar, the member who wanted an election — and each of them is cheap to include and expensive to have omitted. Build the agenda from the bye-law this year, and the question does not arise.

Every bye-law number in this circular is to the Model Bye-laws of Co-operative Housing Societies, 2014 (175 bye-laws) — bye-laws 95, 99, 141, 151 and 162 — read with the MCS Act 1960 and the Rules made under it, and with Rule 106C-13(3) of the MCS (Amendment) Rules 2026 for the hybrid-meeting provision. A society whose registered bye-laws differ should read this against its own.