Society Records and the Share Certificate: What Every Member Must Keep

Your share certificate is the document that proves you are a member of your co-operative housing society — not the sale agreement, and not the keys to your flat. It is issued by the society under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies (MCS) Act, 1960 and the Model Bye-Laws, 2014, and it records the shares allotted to you and links your name to a specific flat. Alongside it sits a defined set of statutory registers and files the society is bound to maintain, and which you are entitled to see.

One change most members have not been told about. Section 32 of the MCS Act — the old "right of members to see books" that almost every article still quotes — no longer applies to co-operative housing societies. Section 154B(2), inserted by the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2019, lists section 32 among the provisions that do not apply to housing societies. Your right now sits in Section 154B-8 of the same Act, and it comes with harder timelines and a daily fine that section 32 never had. Quote 154B-8, not 32.

Source: MCS Act 1960, sections 154B(2), 154B-8, 146(p-2) and 147, as inserted/amended by the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2019.

What the share certificate is — and why it matters more than your flat keys

A "co-operative housing society" is a legal body that owns the land and the building. As a member, you hold shares in that body, and those shares give you the right to occupy one specific flat. The share certificate is the printed proof of those shares.

The document the law actually calls evidence, though, is the register of members. Section 38 of the MCS Act, 1960 requires every society to keep a register of members recording each member's name, address and occupation, the shares held, the date of admission and the date of ceasing to be a member — and it makes that register prima facie evidence of the date you were admitted and the date you ceased to be a member. Section 38 continues to apply to housing societies under section 154B(1). So a share certificate that does not match the "I" register is a problem you fix before, not during, a redevelopment.

Five things to check on your own certificate today

1. Issued within six months. Model Bye-law 9(a) requires the society to issue the share certificate within six months of the allotment of shares. If yours never came, that six-month period has long expired and the society is in default.
2. It bears a distinctive number and states your name, the number of shares issued and the value paid on them — Model Bye-law 9(a).
3. Three signatures plus the seal. Model Bye-law 10: the society's seal, signed by the Chairman, the Secretary and one Committee member authorised by the Committee, and issued by the Secretary. A certificate carrying only two signatures is not in the form the bye-law prescribes.
4. It follows the prescribed format at Appendix 29 of the Model Bye-Laws (the specimen share certificate, issued under bye-law 9). Ask for a photocopy of the counterfoil, which the society must keep on a separate file.
5. Your name matches the "I" register and the "J" list exactly — spelling, joint holders and their order. In a joint holding, the person whose name stands first in the share certificate is the one entitled to vote (MCS Act s.154B-11(4)); the second name votes only in the first holder's absence. If the order on your certificate is wrong, the wrong person is voting on your redevelopment.

Separately, section 154B-10(2) of the MCS Act requires the housing society to issue every member to whom a flat has been allotted a certificate of allotment under its seal and signature, and to issue it forthwith once the member has paid the dues the society has determined and notified. That is a second document, distinct from the share certificate, and most Mumbai members have never asked for it.

Source: MCS Act 1960 ss.38, 154B-10(2), 154B-11(4); Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (2014), bye-laws 9, 10 and Appendix 29.

Why the share certificate matters for redevelopment

Only members can vote at the Special General Body Meeting (SGBM) where a society decides to redevelop and picks a developer. Under the Section 79A redevelopment directive dated 4 July 2019, the meeting that appoints a developer needs approval of not less than 51% of the total membership, the meeting is video-recorded, and an authorised officer of the Registrar attends. If your name and your membership are not clean in the society's records, your vote — and your claim to a new flat and to the additional area a redevelopment offers — can be questioned later.

This is why the share certificate and the register of members must agree with each other. A mismatch (an old owner's name still on record, a transfer that was never completed, or a certificate issued to only one joint holder) is exactly the kind of thing that stalls a project or triggers a dispute. Before you compare developer offers on the offer comparison tool or commission a feasibility report, it is worth confirming your own membership record is in order.

What you may inspect free — the section 154B-8 list

Section 154B-8(1) of the MCS Act, 1960 gives every member of a housing society the right to inspect, free of cost, at the society's office during office hours (or at any time the society fixes for the purpose), a closed list of documents. The entitlement in the section is unconditional on its face — it is not expressed to depend on a committee resolution or on a reason being given. This is the list, in the order the section sets it out.

Note the boundary honestly: item 8 limits the free inspection of the general books to your own transactions. Anything outside these eight heads — the conveyance deed, the approved plans, the property card, another member's file — is obtained as a copy on payment under sub-section (2), or from the government office that holds the original.

Source: MCS Act 1960, section 154B-8(1).

Getting copies: the application, the fee and the 45-day clock

Section 154B-8(2) is the operative sub-section. It says the society shall furnish a member, on request in writing and on payment of such fees at such rate as may be decided by the Registrar, copies of any of the documents in the list above, within forty-five days from the date of payment of the fees — and within thirty days where the society has been assisted by Government in the form of share capital, loan or land.

Three things follow, and they are the whole difference between a request that works and one that does not:

1. It must be in writing. A request at a meeting, on WhatsApp or to the managing agent starts no clock. Put it on paper, keep a copy.
2. The clock starts on payment, not on the application. So pay in the same visit, take a numbered receipt, and write the receipt number on your copy. Without proof of payment you have no start date and no offence to complain about.
3. Diarise the 45th day. From the day after that date, the officer responsible is exposed to a fine of Rs 100 per day.

Source: MCS Act 1960 s.154B-8(2); s.146(p-2) and s.147(p-2) (fine of Rs 100 per day after expiry of the s.154B-8(2) period, up to Rs 5,000). Page rates from the Model Bye-Laws copying-fee schedule below.

The copying fees the Model Bye-Laws prescribe

The statutory rate is "as decided by the Registrar", and the Model Bye-Laws carry a schedule societies adopt. In the 2014 flat-owner-type model text this is bye-law 170 (bye-law 23, which grants the right, cross-refers to it as bye-law 172 — the numbering varies between the sets societies have registered, so check the number in your own bye-laws before quoting it).

Source: Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (flat-owner type, 2014), copying-fee schedule at bye-law 170. The last row is worded in the bye-law as "any other document as per section 32 of the Act"; for housing societies read it as section 154B-8.

The letter to hand in — copy this

Keep it one page. Address it to the Secretary, name the documents, tender the fee, and ask for an acknowledgement on your copy. The wording below is a skeleton; fill in the square brackets.

If the society refuses — the escalation ladder

Do not jump straight to court. The Model Bye-Laws build a short internal step with its own 15-day clock, and the Act then gives the Registrar direct enforcement powers. Take them in order; each step creates the record the next one needs.

Sections 91 to 100 and 145 to 154 continue to apply to housing societies under section 154B(1), so the Co-operative Court and the appeal routes are intact — it is only the inspection provision that moved from s.32 to s.154B-8.

Source: MCS Act 1960 ss.91, 92, 97, 146(p-2), 147, 148, 152, 154B(1), 154B-27; Model Bye-Laws 171–173.

The separate 30-day clock for a sale or mortgage certificate

If what you need is not a copy but a certificate or no-objection from the society — to sell your flat, or to mortgage it for a loan — a different sub-section applies and it is faster. Under section 154B-27(3) the society must decide your application within 30 days of receiving it and intimate the decision to you within 15 days of deciding. If it neither decides nor intimates in that time, or rejects the application, you may appeal to the Registrar within three months from the date you submitted the application to the society, or within two months from the date of the rejection, whichever is earlier. The Registrar must dispose of that appeal within 60 days of receiving it, after hearing all parties.

Source: MCS Act 1960, section 154B-27(3) and its proviso.

How to get a duplicate share certificate through your society

If your share certificate is lost, damaged or destroyed, you do not go to a government office — you apply to your own society's managing committee. Model Bye-law 9(b) is short and specific: the Committee shall issue a duplicate share certificate, "So Marked", on application, on production of the documents listed below. Note that the bye-law names an affidavit, not an indemnity bond, as the document required; some societies ask for an indemnity bond as well, and that is a society practice rather than a bye-law requirement.

1. Written application to the Committee. State the certificate number, your flat number and how the certificate was lost or damaged.
2. If the certificate is lost — attach a copy of the police complaint lodged and an affidavit to that effect. Both are named in bye-law 9(b)(1).
3. If the certificate is soiled, burnt, torn or disfigured — an affidavit to that effect is enough, under bye-law 9(b)(2). Surrender the damaged original.
4. Pay the fee — Rs 100 for a duplicate share certificate under the Model Bye-Laws copying-fee schedule (bye-law 170, item 6). Take a numbered receipt.
5. Committee resolution. The Committee passes the resolution issuing the duplicate; ask for the minute number, because the fact of issue must be recorded and the counterfoil kept on the society's file of "counterfoils of share certificates" and "applications for duplicate share certificates".
6. Collect it and check it. The duplicate must be marked "So Marked", bear the society's seal and carry the three signatures required by bye-law 10 — Chairman, Secretary and one authorised Committee member — and be issued by the Secretary.

If the society will not issue the certificate or the duplicate, the Model Bye-Laws put "Non-issuance of the Share Certificates" squarely in the Registrar's list of complaint matters (bye-law 173(a)(iii)). Complain to the Registrar first — the Deputy or Assistant Registrar of Co-operative Societies for your ward — and ask for a direction under section 154B-27(1) of the MCS Act, 1960. A dispute touching the constitution, management or business of the society may also be referred to the Co-operative Court under section 91, subject to the six-year limitation in section 92(1) running from the date of the act or omission.

Source: Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (2014), bye-laws 9(b), 10, 141 (files to be maintained), 170 and 173(a); MCS Act 1960 ss.91, 92, 154B-27.

Every register your society must keep — named, with its form

This is not a wish list. Model Bye-law 140 requires the society to maintain these sixteen books, records and registers, and three of them have a form prescribed under the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961. Ask for them by name and by form letter — a committee that is told "produce the 'I' register maintained under Rule 32" answers differently from one asked for "the members list". A fuller redevelopment set sits in our redevelopment document checklists.

Source: Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (2014), bye-law 140; MCS Rules 1961 Rules 32 and 33; MCS Act 1960 s.38. Bye-law numbering varies between registered sets — some number this list 141.

And a separate file for every listed subject

Bye-law 141 requires the society to keep separate files, not a single bundle, for each of the subjects it lists — more than thirty of them, ending with a direction to open files for other subjects too. When you are preparing for redevelopment, these eleven are the ones to ask for by name:

• Applications for transfer of shares and/or interest in the capital or property of the society
• Nominations made by members, including revocations
• Correspondence with the Co-operative Registrar
• Correspondence about conveyance of the property
• Approved plans of construction and correspondence on them
• All types of agreements, with the papers connected to them
• Applications for allotment of parking spaces
• Counterfoils of share certificates, and applications for duplicate share certificates
• The application for registration of the society, the bye-laws and amendments, and the framed registration certificate
• Audit memos from the statutory auditors with rectification reports, and internal audit reports with responses
• Notices and agenda of committee and general body meetings, and complaints from members

Under bye-law 142 it is the Secretary who is responsible for maintaining and keeping up to date everything in bye-laws 140 and 141, unless the Committee decides otherwise. So address your application to the Secretary, and name the Secretary in any complaint to the Registrar about missing records.

Source: Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (2014), bye-laws 141 and 142.

Records the society does not hold — and where they live

Conveyance and the property card — the land question

Two records above deal with the same question: whose name is the land in? The "property card" is the government land record maintained by the City Survey Office; it names the legal holder of the plot. The "conveyance deed" is the document by which the builder formally transfers the land and building to your society. Under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act (MOFA), 1963, Section 11 places a duty on the promoter (builder) to convey title to the society. Two periods matter, and both are diarisable:

• Four months. Where no period is agreed in the agreement for sale, Rule 9 of the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Rules, 1964 requires the promoter to convey within four months of the registration of the society. From the day that expires, the society has a cause of action.
• Six months. Where the promoter has not conveyed, the society applies in writing to the Competent Authority under Section 11(3), with true copies of the registered agreements for sale and the supporting documents, for a certificate that it is entitled to a unilateral deemed conveyance. The Competent Authority — an officer not below the rank of District Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, appointed by the State Government by notification — must decide within a reasonable time and in any case not later than six months, after enquiry, verification of the documents and a reasonable opportunity to the promoter to be heard.

So a society that files a complete deemed-conveyance application on 1 October has a decision due by 1 April. Diarise it, and minute the filing date in the committee minutes so the six months can be proved.

These documents create rights in immovable property, so they must be registered — Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908 makes registration of such documents compulsory. Until conveyance is done, the property card will not show the society as the holder, and that gap can complicate a redevelopment agreement and the way FSI benefits are claimed. Our conveyance and deemed conveyance guide walks through the full process step by step.

If your building is not a co-operative society but is held under the Maharashtra Apartment Ownership Act, 1970 through a registered Deed of Declaration — where each owner holds their apartment plus an undivided share in the common areas — the underlying idea is the same: you must be able to prove your ownership and your share of the common property from the recorded documents.

Approved plans, accounts and audit

The approved building plans, the Intimation of Disapproval (IOD) and the Commencement Certificate (CC) are the sanctioned record of what was legally built. They matter because the existing authorised area is one input into working out the potential of a redevelopment. Exact development potential is always plot-specific — it depends on your plot area, the road width and the applicable regulations — so use the FSI calculator and the additional area calculator for figures rather than relying on any single universal number.

The audited accounts and the annual audit report show the society's real financial position: its repair and sinking funds, its dues, and any liabilities. A developer, a lender and the members themselves all read these before a project starts. The Model Bye-Laws put dates on this too. Under bye-law 145(a) the Secretary must finalise the previous year's accounts within 45 days of the close of the co-operative year and prepare the Receipts and Payments Statement, the Income and Expenditure Statement and the Balance Sheet in the forms prescribed under Rule 62(1) of the MCS Rules, 1961, together with the list of Active and Non-Active Members. Under bye-law 145(b) the society must file its Annual Returns with the Registrar on or before 30 September every year, including the annual report on the society's activities, the audited statement of accounts, the plan for surplus disposal approved by the general body, and the list of active and non-active members.

If your society has not filed by 30 September, that is a fact worth putting on the record in writing before a developer selection meeting — it is also a listed Registrar complaint matter under bye-law 173(a) ("Non filling of Returns and statements").

Your Active Member classification — the 31 March clock

Bye-law 22(c) defines an "Active Member" as one who has attended at least one general body meeting in the previous consecutive period of five years (unless the general body has condoned the absence), owns a flat or unit in the society, and pays maintenance, service and other charges regularly. The society classifies every member as Active or Non-Active at the close of each financial year, and must communicate a Non-Active classification within 30 days from 31 March. If you disagree, an appeal lies to the Registrar within 60 days of the date that classification was communicated to you. Miss the 60 days and you are arguing about it in the middle of a redevelopment vote instead of before one.

Source: Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (2014), bye-laws 22(c)–(e), 145(a) and (b), 173(a); MCS Rules 1961 Rule 62(1).

The dates to put in your diary

Every deadline on this page, in one place. Fill in your own dates in the last column and keep it with your share certificate.

Sources: Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1960 (as amended in 2019); Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules 1961; Model Bye-Laws of Co-operative Housing Society (2014); Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act 1963 and Rules 1964. Bye-law numbers differ slightly between the sets societies have registered — verify against your own registered bye-laws before citing one in a letter.

Moving records online — the state co-operation portal

Maharashtra's co-operation department has been shifting society registration and record-keeping onto an online portal, so that key details are held digitally rather than only in physical registers. This makes it easier to verify a society's status, file returns and reduce the risk of lost or tampered records. If your society is registering afresh, or updating its details, our guide to online society registration explains how the portal works, and you can begin the process through register your society.

Online records do not replace your paper originals — they sit alongside them. The safest position for a member is to hold certified physical copies and clear digital scans of every document in the checklist, and to make sure the society's online record matches them.