With nearly more than 55,000 Co-operative Societies in the State of Maharashtra holding an Annual
General Meeting becomes an important event where many matters regarding Housing Co-operative Society’s problems
are discussed. The question is how many days advance Notice should be given in
order to call an Annual General Meeting,
Adv. R. P.
Rathod clears all the doubts.
It is
enacted that at least fourteen days clear notice should be given to all the
members before an Annual General Meeting can
be convened.
The next question is that if a Special
General Meeting of a Society is to be called very urgently what is the minimum period
for such a notice to be issued? In this connection it has been enacted that at least five days notice is required in
order to call a Special General
Meeting. As such the Managing Committee of the
Society must be very vigilant and bear in mind the time factor before such
meetings could be convened.
However the most important question is as
the how such a notice could be delivered in as many as three ways. Firstly such notices could be delivered by
hand. The Secretary of the Society or the Manager of the Society could
deliver such a notice. It is important to remember that the Manager or
the Secretary must take the signature of the member concerned in token of having
received such a notice.
Now take the case where a notice is sent to a member with a watchman and the member refuses to accept such delivery from the watchman.
What can
happen under the Provisions of law?
Is it laid
down anywhere that the Notice should be Hand delivered only by the Manager or
Secretary?
The answer is certainly not. A member has
to accept a notice sent even through a watchman and if he does not do so it is
his own flat.
Now what
would happen if such a member were to attend a meeting and raise and issue that
the notice of the meeting has not been delivered to him and as such no meeting
can take place?
In my opinion the behavior of such a member
only reflects false pride. It can very well be proved that the watchman went to
such a member and he refused to accept the notice from him. It is definitely not necessary that the
Secretary or Manager should personally go and deliver such a notice to a member.
The channel through which a notice is sent is a very trivial issue and upon
such an objection a meeting cannot be postponed.
Secondly, a Notice can be sent under postal Certificate, now that the U.P.C system of Indian Postal services has been discontinued, the said Notice thus should be sent by R.P.A.D. or by Courier Services, which is now been recognized even by the Court of Law. Now what would happen if a member were to state that he has not received such a notice by post or by courier. In any case it is incumbent upon the Secretary of the said Society to produce the acknowledgement of posting certificate or the Courier as the case may be. Thus the acknowledgment or refusal envelop has to be maintained on the records of the society, as it is a conclusive proof of service.
Once such an acknowledgement is produced
and presented it is presumed that the member has received such a notice and his
objection
for postponement of the meeting would be of no avail.
Now is the society has adopted the practice
of sending such a notice by registered post or courier services. When a notice
is dispatched by such services and even if such a notice has been accepted by any member of
the family other than the member himself, it is implied
in law that the member knows about the contents of the notice and the notice is
duly served upon him. The objection of the member that the family member who
had received the notice has not informed him is of no avail at all.
You would be surprised to know that even a
notice displayed on the Notice board of
the Society is good
service. It only means that the members have been informed about the
meeting. It may be that certain members may complain that they do not read the Notice Board
and they have not been informed officially about either the Annual General Meeting or
the Special General
Meeting. However once a notice is displayed on the Notice Board
then the objection of the member that he has not received the notice convening
the meeting would be of the no avail at all. The mere averment of the member
that he is not in the habit of reading notices placed on the notice board does
not mean that the meeting could be postponed.
Unfortunately there are members who go on
pin pointing trivial issues which are of little consequence, in order to hamper
the work of the society. Adv. R. P.
Rathod thus suggests
that that every society should have a powerful President who could give a ruling
on each and every issue without fear of favour and who should be bold enough to
reject the trivial issues which are of no consequence. The meetings of the
society always have to be conducted in a transparent manner & interest of
the General members shall always prevail upon the egos of individuals. Moreover
a President should only allow the bonafide members to attend the meetings and
take part in the discussions and vote, family members of the member should not
be allowed to interfere and disturb the Annual General Meeting at all concludes
Adv. R. P. Rathod.
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