Does breaching the redevelopment GR automatically disqualify the committee? Bombay HC in Harish Arora v. Deputy Registrar (2025), decoded

Your committee pushed redevelopment forward, the general body passed the resolutions, and now a member's complaint has reached the Deputy Registrar. The allegation: the process did not follow the State's redevelopment Government Resolution. Every secretary's fear is simple. Can a lapse against that GR cost the whole committee its seat? One Bombay High Court judgment answers that on its own facts.

The case in brief

The petitioners in Harish Arora And Ors v. The Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies were six managing committee members of Bandra Trishul Premises Co-operative Housing Society. A complaint alleged that the society's redevelopment resolutions were vitiated by irregularities and by non-compliance with the Government Resolution dated 4 July 2019, the State's redevelopment directives issued under section 79A.

By an order dated 11 February 2025 the Deputy Registrar disqualified all six for six years under section 79A(3). By another order dated 20 February 2025 he appointed an Administrator under section 77A. Show-cause notices had gone only to three of the six. The members went to the Bombay High Court under Article 227 (Writ Petition No. 3433 of 2025). Amit Borkar, J. decided it on 9 June 2025 (2025:BHC-AS:22586).

What the court decided

On these facts, where the allegation was non-compliance with the 2019 GR and there was no finding of fraud or misconduct against any individual member, the court quashed both orders.

The 2019 GR was held directory. Its guidelines are meant to be followed, but, as para 47 puts it, "every deviation or procedural lapse by itself does not constitute actionable wrong unless it is shown to violate the object of the directives or violate some express statutory requirement."

Section 79A(3) was read as narrow and person-specific. Disqualification is not automatic by association. It must be shown that the directive required something specific from the individual, that the individual failed in it, and that the failure was without just cause (para 41). The GR divides duties between the Secretary's administrative functions and the committee's collective functions (paras 39-40).

The court found four defects in the disqualification order (para 65): no notice to some petitioners, section 79A(3) invoked despite the GR being directory, no allegation or finding of fraud or misconduct, and no consultation with the federal society, a mandatory prior step. The Registrar also has no jurisdiction under section 79A(3) to judge the legality of general body resolutions; that lies under section 91 before the Co-operative Court (para 79). Following up with a section 77A Administrator was a colourable exercise (paras 95-97).

Why it matters for your society

A complaint may combine a missed step in the GR with a request to remove the committee. This ruling gives a committee a principled answer. A procedural slip against the GR is not, by itself, a ground to disqualify a committee member under section 79A(3). The authority must identify a specific duty, a specific person and a breach without justification.

It also shows how an order can fail on procedure alone: notice to every member named, consultation with the federal society, and a finding tied to each individual.

The comfort has limits. The judgment also says section 79A and the 2019 GR impose obligations that protect members' welfare, and that authorities should enforce them within the law (para 99). The ruling protects against automatic penalty, not against scrutiny.

What your committee should do

1. 1Record who was responsible for each GR step. As the court read the GR, the Secretary convenes the general body meeting, prepares and furnishes minutes, seeks reports and publishes notices, while the committee seeks quotations from a Project Management Consultant and places proposals before the general body.
2. 2Put the redevelopment proposal and the choice of developer before the general body, as the committee in this case did (paras 55, 80). Bye-law 155 makes maintaining the society's property and, if necessary, redeveloping it the committee's responsibility, to be discharged as per Government directives from time to time and as per prevailing laws, and bye-law 158 keeps that responsibility on the committee until the work is complete, including seeing that redevelopment is carried out as per the contract the society has executed.
3. 3Fix the minutes trail. Bye-law 136 requires the Secretary to record committee minutes and place them for confirmation at the next meeting; bye-law 108 requires draft general body minutes to be finalised within 3 months and circulated to members.
4. 4If a notice arrives, answer for each member separately. Check that every member named received notice and a hearing, and whether the federal society was consulted.
5. 5Do not read this as permission to skip the GR. If your resolution falls under the 2026 rules, our dataset summarises Rule 106C-13(3)(i)(j) as requiring 14 clear days' notice, two-third quorum, the Registrar's representative present and video recording. This judgment did not consider those rules.
6. 6Take legal advice before replying to a Registrar's complaint. An order under section 79A(3) is final under the section but remains subject to judicial review (para 37).

Limits of this ruling

This is a decision on one society's facts. The court did not examine whether fraud actually occurred; it recorded that there were no concrete findings of fraud, collusion or mala fides against individual members. It did not annul any general body resolution; para 79 routes that to section 91. Established wrongdoing, the court said, lies under section 78A, not section 79A(3) (para 58).

The operative order quashes both orders of 11 and 20 February 2025 and directs the Principal Secretary (Co-operation) to appoint a senior officer to hold a comprehensive and impartial inquiry into the conduct of respondent No. 1, to be completed within eight weeks with a compliance report to the Court. It contains no express direction restoring the petitioners to the committee. A stay was refused and compliance was listed for 25 August 2025, so later developments on this file are not covered.