Legal Reference Library

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has ruled that a man is legally entitled to nominate his married daughter to own his cooperative society flat after his death, depriving his wife and only son. The West Bengal Cooperative Societies Rules, 1987, stipulate that the owner of a flat in a cooperative society can nominate his house in favour of a person "belonging to his family". Taking this rule as their defence, along with other provisions of the WB Cooperative Societies Act, 1983, Biswa Ranjan Sengupta's wife and son challenged the decision of the managing committee of Purbanchal Housing Estate, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, to transfer ownership of a flat to Indrani Wahi, Sengupta's married daughter. Based on the objection, the deputy registrar of Cooperative Societies declined to record Indrani's name as the successor of the flat originally allotted to Sengupta, who in his last days was living with her because of "ill-treatment" by his wife and s...

A division Bench of Delhi High Court Today held that Registrar of Cooperative Societies is a ‘Public Authority’ and hence duty bound to comply with the provisions of RTI Act and is required to provide information as provided for under Section 2(f) of the Act subject to the limitations enumerated under Section 8 of the RTI Act. The Bench comprising of Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma reversed a decision of Central information Commission in which it is held that the Cooperative Societies Act being a special Act took precedence over the RTI Act (which is a general Act) especially when the special Act itself provided to a bona-fide member of a Cooperative Society identical relief as provided under the RTI Act’. Facts; The petitioner has been a member of the Sangha Mitra CGH Society since 1995. She had sought information from the SPIO regarding documents and accounts pertaining to the Society as well as minutes of the general body meeting of the Society. She had also sought inform...