Heirs’ failure to obtain society membership does not bar their assignee’s membership in peculiar circumstances.

The Society had leased Plot No. 177 and part of Plot No. 176 to Anthony Gonsalves and Victor Danny Gonsalves, whose legal heirs later executed documents in favour of Grace Pinto, Respondent No. 3, concerning rights in the plot.

The Society opposed her membership, and the Deputy Registrar directed the Society to grant her membership under Section 22 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960; the Divisional Joint Registrar dismissed the Society’s revision.

The Society challenged both orders, contending, among other things, that Pinto had not applied for membership, that the heirs had not first obtained membership, and that the underlying agreement was unregistered.

1. Whether the Society could contend that Pinto had never applied for membership when it had earlier considered and rejected her request.

2. Whether the legal heirs’ failure to obtain membership before assigning their claimed rights to Pinto was a ground to deny her membership.

3. Whether the alleged non-registration of the 2004 agreement precluded Pinto’s membership, and whether the issue could be determined without specific pleadings and a pleaded basis concerning the Society’s classification.

4. Whether the concurrent orders directing provisional membership warranted interference in the writ petition.

Section 22(2) of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, was the basis for the membership proceedings.

Section 41 exempts specified instruments relating to shares in a society from compulsory registration under Section 17(1)(b) and (c) of the Registration Act, 1908; Section 154B-12, introduced with Chapter XIII-B with effect from 9 March 2019, requires a registered document for transfer of a member’s share, right, title and interest in society property.

The Court treated the heirs’ failure to first obtain membership as a procedural irregularity that, in the particular circumstances, did not extinguish their claimed rights or make the assignment to Pinto ipso facto illegal.

It also observed that society membership does not determine ownership and that society records may be altered according to the outcome of civil proceedings.

The parties cited Jay Anant Sagar Co-op. Housing Society v. Divisional Joint Registrar and Mulshanker Kunverji Gor v. Juvansinhji Shivubha Jadeja, Usha Arvind Dongre v. Suresh Raghunath Kotwal, and Sadbuddhi Brahmesh Wagh v. Satish Raghvendra Wagh; the Court did not decide the registration issue by applying those authorities, leaving it open.

The Society’s own letter of 29 October 2008 recorded that its Managing Committee had not approved the sale to Pinto, demonstrating that her request had been considered and rejected; the Society therefore could not maintain that she had never applied.

The Court held that, on the unusual facts—including the assignment having occurred in 2004 and the intervening period—the heirs’ failure to first secure membership did not justify denying Pinto membership; it clarified that this was not a general endorsement of bypassing the Society’s procedures.

The Court declined to determine the registration objection because it was not specifically pleaded or raised before the authorities, and the Society had not pleaded whether it was a tenant-co-partnership or tenant-co-ownership society.

With the Society’s objection concerning Pinto’s religion no longer pressed, the Court found no basis to disturb the concurrent orders.

The registration issue was left open for determination in an appropriate case.