Recovery

Part 1

v     General

It has been observed that in many societies only a few members look after the management of society and others do not show any interest. When a major amount is required for a particular purpose, all the members, attending the special general meeting called for the said purpose, agree on not paying the additional sum.  Some members inform the managing committee in writing that they will not make any contribution unless their problems are solved.

Earlier, in such a case, the dispute was required to be registered in a Co-operative court for recovery of the sum and the Secretary or Treasurer would present the matter in court and would be obliged to give evidence.  This was very time consuming. Now the procedure has been simplified and under Section 101 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Society Act, 1960, recovery can be made very easily.

v     Implication Of The Provision Under Section 101

Section 101 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960 provides for recovery of dues from the members as arrears of land revenue. The Section 101 of Maharashtra Co-operative Society Act, 1960 can be implemented in the following manner:

(1)   The society should give a notice to the defaulting member, giving him an opportunity to make payment of dues, within a given period such as the society may allow with a warning therein that on failure to make such a payment an applicant would, under Section 101 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Society Act be liable for recovery of the outstanding dues.

(2)   On failure of the defaulting member to make payment of the outstanding dues within the prescribed period, the managing committee has to pass a resolution for taking action under Section 101 of the Act. The resolution authorizes the Hon. Secretary/Chairman to sign all the documents to be submitted to the Registrar and to furnish all the information required by the Registrar for the issue of a Certificate.

(3)   The Hon. Secretary/Chairman has to make an application to the Registrar along with all such other documents as are required to be submitted along with the application.

(4)   On receipt of such an application, the Registrar would give a hearing to the defaulting member/s and on verification of the records if the Registrar is satisfied about the correctness of the outstanding, a certificate will be issued by him to the society, as he deem fit.

(5)   On receipts of the certificate along with other documents, the recovery officer has   to prepare a demand notice which has to be sent to the Sales-officer for sale of the movable property of the defaulting member.

(6)   The Sale-officer, on receipt of the recovery papers, has to visit the flat of the member concerned in order to prepare an inventory and having done so, must hand over the same to the member.

(7)   If  the amount is not paid forthwith on service of the demand notice the Sale-officer will seize the movable property as per the inventory and hand it over to the Chairman/Secretary or any other person as per the inventory and hand it over to the Chairman/Secretary or any other person for safe custody.

(8)   The Sale-officer will then fix the date, time and place for auction of the movable property seized. The same will be auctioned and the process of the sale will be given to the society, in satisfaction of the dues outstanding against the defaulting member.

(9)   If the proceeds of the sale of movable property are found to be insufficient to cover the outstanding dues in full, as per the certificate, the Sale-officer will proceed against the flat owner by arranging auction of the same to recover the balance of the dues.