Talking to Indiancooperative.com, Dr M L Khurana, MD National Housing Coop Fed said that he is not aware of today’s judgment but apex court has in its earlier rulings also upheld the similar point of views. Housing cooperative society gets land on discount from government only to benefit the needy. But if the member begins business out of it, it is not fair, Khurana added.
“Experience has shown that voluntary organizations like cooperative societies are the best system which can suit the needs of poor and weaker sections,” a Bench of justices Mukundakam Sharma and A R Dave said in their judgment.
The object of a cooperative society is not to earn profits but to enable the members to improve their economic conditions by helping them in their pursuits, the court said.
“Thus, the cooperative societies like the present one which seek to obtain the land at concessional rate from the government and to build houses must necessarily have a limitation in that only members who are in real need of houses should be permitted to become members and to take the benefit of land allotment,” Justice Sharma writing the judgment observed.
The apex court passed the judgment while upholding the membership termination of a doctor, Parmanand Sharma, by Ishwar Nagar Co-op Housing Building Society in south Delhi for being in possession of another housing property in violation of the society’s bye-laws.
Sharma had purchased a property bearing No. A-19/A, Kailash Colony, New Delhi in his family’s name consisting of him, wife and two minor children in 1968. In the ground floor he was running a nursing home and on the other floors he was residing with his family.
His membership of the society was terminated in 1978 on the ground that Sharma owned another residential property, in the capital in violation of rule 25(1) (c) of Delhi Cooperative Societies Rules, 1973 which prohibited a member from owning any other property.
The Delhi High Court quashed the termination upon which the society moved the apex court.
Upholding the appeal, the apex court said, “In the garb of a cooperative society, a person cannot be permitted to avoid the stress of market prices and take a concessional advantage in obtaining a plot.