In a ruling that should make every flat buyer and every managing committee sit up, the Maharashtra State Co-operative Appellate Court has delivered a blunt message: the moment a co-operative housing society is registered, the builder’s power to hand out parking spaces ends.
On 18 July 2026, Member-1 Dr. Srishty Neelkanth set aside an interim injunction that had protected five flat owners of Tharvani Residency in Kamothe, Navi Mumbai. The lower Co-operative Court had restrained the society from stopping these members from using stilt parking slots that the developer had allotted to them. The Appellate Court tore that protection down.
The message is now crystal clear. After society registration, a developer cannot create exclusive parking rights in favour of flat buyers. Those spaces belong to the common pool, and the society alone decides how they are used.
The Dispute That Reached the Appellate Court
Tharvani Residency has 183 residential flats and 38 commercial shops. After the residential co-operative housing society was registered, a few flats remained unsold. The developer, Sai Associates, sold those remaining flats to five buyers and also issued them stilt parking allotment letters.
The society objected. It argued that once registered, the builder had no authority left to deal with common areas. The five members rushed to the Co-operative Court at Alibag seeking declaration and injunction. On 26 June 2024, the trial court partly allowed their interim application and stopped the society from interfering with their parking.
The society challenged that order in Appeal from Order No. 79 of 2025. The Appellate Court framed six points and answered every single one against the members.
Why the Court Rejected the Members’ Case
The five buyers had only one piece of evidence — the developer’s allotment letters. Those letters themselves carried clear conditions:
- The stilt parking could not be sold or transferred to any outsider.
- The allottees would have to pay whatever reasonable monthly car parking charges the society levied after the land and building were handed over.
The Court held that these letters created no enforceable exclusive right against the society.
The decisive blow came from a 16-year-old Supreme Court judgment that still governs parking disputes across Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court Judgment That Sealed the Fate
In Nahalchand Laloochand Private Limited v. Panchali Co-operative Housing Society Ltd. (2010) 9 SCC 536, the Supreme Court had laid down the law in unambiguous terms.
The Court held that a promoter has no right to sell any portion of the building that is not a “flat” under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act. Stilt parking spaces are neither flats nor appurtenant or attached to flats. They form part of the common areas. The entire land and building must be conveyed to the society. The only residual right left with the promoter is to sell the unsold flats.
Once the society is registered, the developer is stripped of control over common amenities. Any allotment of parking made after that point is without authority and without legal effect.
The Appellate Court applied this principle directly. The five members had failed to make out even a prima facie case. Therefore, the questions of balance of convenience and irreparable injury did not arise in their favour. The trial court’s interim order was held to be legally unsustainable and was set aside.
What the Society Had Already Decided
There was another important fact. In the Annual General Body Meeting held on 19 December 2021, the society had resolved that remaining parking spaces would be allotted on an annual rental basis. That decision, the Court noted, binds every member of the society — including the five disputants who came later with the developer’s letters.
What This Ruling Actually Means
For flat buyers: An allotment letter issued by the developer after the society is registered does not give you a locked, exclusive parking right. The society can still decide the fate of that space through its bye-laws and general body resolutions.
For societies: You regain clear authority over common parking areas once you are registered. You can regulate, allot on rent, or distribute by lottery as your bye-laws and members decide.
For developers: Your residual right after society registration is limited to selling the unsold flats. You cannot continue to create permanent parking rights in common areas.
The main dispute will still be fought in the Co-operative Court. This order only removes the interim shield the five members had obtained. But the legal principle it reaffirms is far bigger than one building in Kamothe.
Sixteen years after Nahalchand, the message remains the same. Parking is not the builder’s private property to gift after the society is born. It is a common amenity, and the society is its guardian.
Also Read: Parking space expensive than cars in Mumbai
