Video Conferencing at Housing Society AGMs Under Rule 106C-13(3), Effective 18 June 2026

It's September, and the secretary of a 40-flat society in Thane is drafting the AGM notice. Half a dozen members work out of town and always ask to join by video call. Can the notice say so? Does a Zoom link make the meeting vulnerable to challenge if a member later complains the app did not work for them? Since 18 June 2026, this is no longer a guess. Rule 106C-13(3) of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Rules, 2026 puts video conferencing on a statutory footing for the first time for housing-society general body meetings.

What Rule 106C-13(3) actually permits

The rule allows members to participate in general body meetings via video conferencing or other audio-visual means, but only where the system used records and recognises member participation and stores the proceedings with date and time. It is not a bare permission — the society has to be able to show, afterwards, who attended online and when.

Video-conference attendance is not cosmetic. Rule 106C-13(3) counts it toward two of the most consequential thresholds a society faces: the ordinary decision threshold at a general body meeting (51% majority of members present, including those on video conferencing) and the developer-selection threshold at a redevelopment meeting (51% of total members, including those on video conferencing).

Quorum and adjournment have not changed

Rule 106C-13(3) also carries forward the AGM quorum and adjournment rules — and they track what most societies already follow under bye-laws 100 and 101 of the 2014 model bye-laws, with one refinement: bye-law 101 adjourns to "a later hour on the same day… as may have been specified in the notice", where the 2026 table fixes that at one hour later. Quorum is two-third of total members or 20, whichever is less. If a meeting is requisitioned by members and quorum is not met within half an hour, the meeting is dissolved outright — it cannot be adjourned; a fresh requisition is needed. For any other meeting, a failed quorum means adjournment to the same day, same place, one hour later, and if that still fails, to a date 7 to 30 days out with no quorum requirement at all. None of this is new law. Video conferencing is the only genuinely new ingredient.

Notice periods: bye-law 99 is still the baseline

Bye-law 99 of the 2014 model bye-laws requires 14 clear days' notice for an AGM and 5 clear days for a special general body meeting. The 2026 Rules' own AGM table under Rule 106C-13 confirms rather than changes this: notice for a regular AGM is "as per Act and bye-laws," and notice for a special general body meeting is fixed at "five clear days — section 76 of the Act." A committee that has been following bye-law 99 does not need to recalculate anything for an ordinary meeting.

Redevelopment meetings run under a stricter, separate regime

Where Rule 106C-13(3)(i)-(j) departs sharply from ordinary practice is redevelopment. A redevelopment general body meeting requires 14 clear days' notice that cannot be waived under any circumstance — unlike an ordinary special meeting, which bye-law 99 lets the committee shorten unanimously in a genuine emergency. Quorum is two-third of total members. A representative of the Registrar must be present. The entire meeting must be video recorded, with one copy retained by the Chairman and a second copy lodged with the Assistant or Deputy Registrar having jurisdiction over the society. Developer or contractor selection requires 51% of total members, counting those attending by video conferencing. The Registrar's representative then files a factual report with the Registrar, who communicates it to the society. A redevelopment resolution passed without the Registrar's representative present, or without the video recording, is procedurally defective and open to challenge.

What about committee meetings?

Rule 106C-13(3) speaks only to general body meetings. The 2026 rules do not extend the same video-conferencing permission, in terms, to managing committee meetings — that is left to the model bye-laws the Registrar is yet to issue, though in practice most Registrars already tolerate online committee meetings. A committee relying on video conferencing for its own meetings today is doing so on administrative tolerance, not yet on the same statutory footing that now exists for the general body.

What your committee should do

1. 1Update the AGM notice template to state clearly whether video-conference participation will be offered and how attendance will be recorded, as Rule 106C-13(3) requires.
2. 2For an ordinary AGM, keep following bye-law 99's 14-day notice and bye-law 100's quorum (two-third or 20, whichever is less) — the 2026 Rules do not shorten either.
3. 3For a redevelopment general body meeting, calendar the non-waivable 14-day notice separately, confirm the Registrar's representative's attendance in advance, and arrange video-recording equipment with both a Chairman's copy and a Registrar-office copy.
4. 4Record the names and login/logout times of every member attending by video conferencing in the minutes, so their votes are properly counted toward the 51% decision and developer-selection thresholds.
5. 5If quorum fails at a meeting requisitioned by members, treat it as dissolved rather than adjourned — begin a fresh requisition rather than trying to reconvene the same one.