Auditor panel for 2026-2028 notified: Maharashtra GR of 13 October 2026, and the 30-day deadline after your society's AGM

The Co-operation Department has approved the State panel of auditors for co-operative societies for 2026 to 2028. The Government Resolution is dated 13 October 2026 and rests on Section 81 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 read with Rule 69 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961. Section 81 applies to housing societies through Section 154B(1).

What the order does

• •It approves the 13,467 auditors listed in Annexure A, prepared by the Commissioner for Co-operation and Registrar, Pune.
• •The panel stands approved from the date of its publication until 30 September 2028.
• •Annexure B classifies societies and auditor grades; Annexure C carries the conditions. A society must pick from Annexure A only after reading its own classification in B against the conditions in C.

The 2026 Housing Rules do not disturb this. Rule 106C-1 took housing societies out of Rules 53 and 53C on audit from 18 June 2026, but left Rule 69 — the panel rule this order is issued under — in place.

The 100-member line decides who may audit you

Annexure B puts a housing society with 100 or more members in classification 'B', and one with fewer than 100 in classification 'C'. District housing federations are also in 'B'.

That placement is not cosmetic. Under Annexure C a 'B' society must appoint from the 'A' or 'B' list; a 'C' society may appoint from 'A', 'B' or 'C'; and a 'C' list auditor is not eligible to audit a 'B' society. A society that has crossed 100 members and reappoints its existing 'C' list auditor has appointed someone ineligible for the work. Where a society picks a junior-grade auditor anyway, Annexure C puts the duty of reporting it to the Registrar on the auditor, not the committee.

Thirty days after the AGM

The appointment belongs to the general body, not the committee — bye-law 95(f) lists it as business of the annual general meeting, and the order's own preamble records that the Act gives the AGM that autonomy.

Annexure C then requires that within 30 days of the AGM date the society file with its Registrar, as a statement, the appointed auditor's or firm's name together with the auditor's written consent. Within those same 30 days the auditor must see that a copy of the appointment resolution and his consent letter reaches the Registrar and the District Special Auditor.

Model bye-law 146(b)(viii) allows one month for the same return, so 30 days is the shorter clock to work to. The consequence of missing the bye-law return sits in the bye-laws themselves: under bye-law 146(b)(ix), where a society fails to intimate and file the returns required by Sections 75(2A) and 79(1B), the Registrar may appoint the auditor himself from the panel.

Three consecutive years, or two?

Annexure C sets an outer limit — the same auditor may not be appointed for more than three consecutive years — and places that duty of care on the society and the auditor alike. A society on the model bye-laws is held to less: bye-law 151(a) says not more than two consecutive years. A committee that reads only the Government Resolution and reappoints for a third year may be inside the order and outside its own bye-laws. The stricter registered bye-law governs.

Annexure C also caps an auditor at 20 societies in a financial year, excluding societies with paid-up share capital below Rs 2 lakh.

Also in the conditions

• •A society's internal, continuous or concurrent auditor cannot do its statutory audit. Nor can anyone who has borrowed from it, is a present or past employee, or is a panel auditor who is himself — or whose relative is — a director of it.
• •Defects in the report must be rectified within three months of its date, in Form O under Rule 73, placed before the committee and submitted to the Registrar and the AGM (bye-law 153(a)). Bye-law 153(b) treats failure to submit it as a deemed offence under Section 146, punishable under Section 147.
• •The auditor's remuneration is fixed by the general body, not the committee (bye-law 151(c)).