The Bombay High Court has held that a Co-operative Court can hear disputes over Special General Body Meetings and resolutions of a housing society even when the agenda is redevelopment — but only so long as the challenge is to the process of the meeting and the project has not reached the stage of a selected developer and a signed Development Agreement.
Justice N.J. Jamadar dismissed four connected writ petitions on 18 September 2026 (reserved on 1 September; uploaded 19 September; 2026:BHC-AS:38237) arising from Everard Co-operative Housing Society Ltd at Everard Nagar, Eastern Express Highway, Sion. The society has about 230 members. The petitions challenged Co-operative Appellate Court orders dated 28 April 2026 that had restored two disputes to Co-operative Court No. III after the trial court had returned them for filing in the civil court.
The High Court refused to interfere. The disputes stay in the Co-operative Court. The Court also left open the society’s right to separately challenge an interim stay granted by the Co-operative Court on 10 April 2024.
What the members had challenged
Two disputes were filed by members including Francis Colaco, Mathew Sunny and Raymond Nogueira against the society, its then Chairman Anthony Irineus Carneiro, Secretary Hayley Maria Misquitta and others.
Dispute CC/III/449/2024 attacked the agenda notice of 22 August 2022 and Resolution No. 3 of the SGBM held on 28 August 2022. That resolution reconfirmed earlier cancellation of a letter of intent and authorised the managing committee to explore redevelopment options. The members said the Secretary had no authority to convene the meeting, mandatory procedure was ignored, members were not given a proper chance to speak, and the resolution was contrary to the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, the Rules and the bye-laws.
Dispute CC/III/92/2024 was sharper on timing. On 25 January 2024 the Divisional Joint Registrar, in a revision against a Section 89-A inquiry, directed status quo on a prayer that the managing committee not take policy decisions. The next day the committee decided to call an emergency SGBM. On 28 January 2024 the general body authorised three members — including Carneiro and Aron Pinto — to take the redevelopment process ahead and to convene further meetings without approaching an Authorised Officer if one was appointed by the Registrar. A later notice of 19 February 2024 sought to put the managing committee in “complete custodianship” of the bidding and evaluation process.
The members said the 28 January meeting was held in the teeth of the Registrar’s order and that the resolutions tried to bypass Section 79-A directives and usurp the general body’s role.
On 10 April 2024 the Co-operative Court stayed implementation of the 28 January 2024 resolutions and restrained further steps on the February agenda, including redevelopment-related action.
Why the trial court sent the case to the civil court
The society and office-bearers applied for rejection/return of the disputes. Their case was simple: redevelopment does not “touch the business of the society” under Section 91 of the MCS Act. A line of Bombay High Court judgments — including Mohinder Kaur Kochar v. Mayfair Housing, Maya Developers v. Rajkumar L. Nagda, Parimal H. Solanki (Bhoumik CHS) and Komal Arvind Vesavkar — has treated redevelopment of an existing building as different from the society’s original construction activity. On that view, only a civil court can try such disputes.
On 17 February 2025 the Co-operative Court accepted that reading. It held that the real dispute was the redevelopment process, that precedent barred the Co-operative Court, and that the plaints must be returned under Order VII Rule 10 of the CPC for presentation to the civil court.
What the Appellate Court did
The Co-operative Appellate Court reversed those orders on 28 April 2026. It held that the disputes were between “enumerated persons” under Section 91 — members versus the society and office-bearers — and that the subject matter was the conduct of general meetings and management. It relied on the December 2025 decision in Bank of India Staff Panchsheel Co-operative Housing Society Ltd v. Jitendra Kumar Jani.
The society, Chairman and Secretary then came to the High Court in writ. Interveners Carneiro and Misquitta filed separate petitions. Senior counsel argued that the Appellate Court had read the pleadings formally and missed the “subterfuge”: the members had dressed a redevelopment fight as a meetings case.
What the High Court actually held
Justice Jamadar framed the problem as a choice between two extremes, and rejected both.
First extreme: the moment a resolution mentions redevelopment, the Co-operative Court loses jurisdiction. The Court said that is too broad. Section 91 has a twin test — who the parties are, and what type of dispute it is. Parties here were clearly enumerated persons. The type of challenge, on a meaningful reading of the dispute applications, was to competence to convene, legality of the notice, breach of Rules and bye-laws, and holding a meeting in defiance of a Divisional Joint Registrar status-quo order. That is classic Co-operative Court territory.
Second extreme: members can keep a redevelopment fight in the Co-operative Court forever by attacking only the meeting on technical grounds after a developer is chosen and a Development Agreement is signed. The Court said that is also wrong. Clever drafting that creates an illusion of a meetings dispute, when the real controversy is a concluded redevelopment transaction and third-party rights have intervened, can still be nipped at the threshold.
The deciding facts in this case were stage and nature of relief:
- The challenge was not to the merits of whether the society should redevelop.
- No developer had been finally appointed.
- No Development Agreement had been executed.
- The Co-operative Court had already stayed the impugned resolutions, so there was no immediate risk of conflicting decrees or of a Co-operative Court order becoming meaningless.
Because of that, a declaration on the meetings would still be effective. The Court therefore upheld restoration of both disputes to the Co-operative Court.
How this sits with earlier law
The judgment walks through the Supreme Court ruling in Margret Almeida v. Bombay Catholic Co-operative Housing Society (2012): both the subject matter and the parties must fit Section 91. If either fails, the Co-operative Court cannot try the case.
It accepts the older High Court line that ordinary redevelopment of an ageing building is not, by itself, the “business” of a housing society in the C.F. Marconi / Mohinder Kaur Kochar sense.
It then deals with the 2019 amendment. Chapter XIII-B redefined “housing society” in Section 154B-1(17) to include demolishing existing buildings and reconstructing or using land potential. That can bring reconstruction closer to the society’s object — but Parimal Solanki held that existing bye-laws continue until they are expressly amended (Section 154B-31 saving clause). Whether Everard’s bye-laws now include redevelopment is a mixed question of fact and law. It cannot be decided on a bare reading of the plaint under Order VII Rule 11 or Rule 10. That is the same approach taken in Bank of India Staff Panchsheel CHS (19 December 2025).
Baliram Totaram Misal v. Saujanya CHS (27 August 2026), which the society treated as its main authority, was distinguished on facts. In Misal, the society had already selected a PMC and developer and executed a Development Agreement and power of attorney. Members had split the fight: resolutions in the Co-operative Court, DA in the civil court. Following Margret Almeida (especially paragraph 47), the Court there said both challenges must travel together in the civil court. Otherwise one court may uphold the DA while the other strikes down the resolution that authorised it. That anomaly does not arise at Everard because no DA exists yet.
What a Co-operative Court can cover after this order
On the High Court’s reasoning, a Co-operative Court can still try:
- Whether the person who issued the SGBM notice had authority.
- Whether notice period, agenda, quorum and minutes complied with the Act, Rules and bye-laws.
- Whether a meeting was called in breach of a Deputy Registrar / Divisional Joint Registrar interim order (including Section 89-A related status quo).
- Whether a resolution improperly hands the general body’s redevelopment role to a three-member committee or to the managing committee in a manner alleged to violate Section 79-A directives.
- Interim restraints on giving effect to such resolutions, at least while no DA is in place.
Those issues remain “touching the business” of management and meetings under Section 91, even if the agenda heading is “redevelopment”.
Where the Co-operative Court’s reach stops
The order does not say Co-operative Courts can decide redevelopment as a whole.
Once the process has “gained momentum” in the sense used by the Court — developer appointed, Development Agreement and power of attorney executed, third-party rights created — a challenge confined to the enabling resolutions in the Co-operative Court becomes, in the Court’s words, theoretically possible but practically meaningless. The civil court, which alone can set aside or mould relief on the DA, can also examine the validity of the resolutions. Split litigation at that stage is what Margret Almeida and Baliram Misal warn against.
The High Court also did not decide:
- whether the 2022 or 2024 Everard meetings were actually valid;
- whether redevelopment is now an object of this society under its bye-laws;
- who should be the developer;
- any term of a future DA.
Those remain for the Co-operative Court on merits (meetings) or, later, for the civil court (the transaction).
Why the order matters for Mumbai societies
Redevelopment fights in cessed and old co-operative buildings routinely begin as SGBM wars: who signed the notice, whether 79-A process was followed, whether a small group was authorised to “take the process ahead”, whether a Registrar stay was ignored. This judgment tells managing committees they cannot get such disputes thrown out of the Co-operative Court merely by writing “redevelopment” in the agenda — so long as they have not yet locked a developer and a DA.
It also tells dissenting members that the Co-operative Court is not a parallel forum to unwind a signed development deal. After the DA is executed, the safer and cleaner course, on this line of cases, is one civil suit that attacks both the contract and the resolutions that authorised it.
For Everard CHS specifically, the two disputes now go back to Co-operative Court No. III. The April 2024 interim stay stands restored unless separately vacated. The High Court discharged rule and imposed no costs.
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