Issues with rwa

The RWA allegedly took no action on your complaint of rat infestation. Hence you stopped payment of maintenance bills. You cannot stop payment in that manner. Hence you only will be responsible for the consequences of your non-payment. As you stopped payment for maintenence, RWA stopped services. I do not know your RWA bye-laws. But normally stoppage of services for stoppage of due payments is justified. When you continued your non-payment they disconnected your power supply. Are you billed directly by the power supply company? Do you pay your bill directly to the power supply company, or do you pay to RWA and RWA in turn pays to the power supply company? Police will not take action, as it is, if at all, a non-cognisable offence.

The bills for maintenance and electricity, both are collected by Association who in turn pay to the electricity company. What options does a resident have in case of RWA inaction? I plan to approach consumer forum and Registrar of Societies.

Group Housing Societies in Gurgaon have elected RWA which consist of the members of the GHS and is registered with the Registrar of Societies. Any mis-management by the RWA can be reported to the Registrar of Societies seeking its intervention and getting the present elected RWA dissolved followed by new RWA management election. The changes in the rules of the society can be worked out by the members of the society and any rule made, which happens to be unconstitutional and against the Principle of Natural Justice can be changed. The memorandum including the rules and regulations of the society can always be revised by its members and the revised Memorendum can be submitted to the Registrar of Societies.

Disconection of Electricity and Water supply to any society member who has not paid dues with regard to other services are absolutely wrong as these are essential services which even cannot be disconected even by the government authorities without giving prior notice to the consumer. The Court has even in many cases restored these services disconected by the authorities to consumers even dispite of their failure to clear previous dues.

The non-payment of other maintenance dues of the society done because of insufficient services can be implimented by cutting those maintenance services to the particular member but not the essential services like electricity and water.

In your case, RWA is not working for the welfare of the members, restoring to unconstitutional and illegal acts like disconecting electricity supply to your flat and forcing you to pay for maintenance which are not been properly provided, the best option is to send a formal complaint to the Registrar of Societies, Gurugram and seek suspension of the present RWA and seeking fresh elections of the management body.

The Societies Registration Acts of States are very weak and action against either the office bearers or against the members is very difficult. The Act is intended for voluntary associations and not for associations like RWA. Membership of an RWA cannot be voludtary. I would like to know which section under which Act says that water and elctricity cannot be cut. Electric Supply bodies routinely cut power supply for non-payment of power bills. In States like Andhra Pradesh law itself allows cutting of water supply. Just  a delay in taking action against a complaint of rat infestation cannot be serious enough for action of dissolving the association or its committee. In any case the Charity Commissioner does not take much of any action. What is the provision in the law for taking action? In a co-operative society the registrar of co-operative societies in States like Maharashtra and Gujarat has powers. But the Charity Commissioner has no such powers.

As you say that you pay for electricity to RWA it appears that the service of power supply is also done by the association only. If a service provider provides a number of services and if you do not pay for some of the services, the service provider can stop any of the other services based on feasibility of stopping the service. For instance a sweeper sweeps the front of all the houses, it may not be feasible to stop sweeping the front of one house only. Under section 2 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, services which are provided free of cost are not covered under the Act. The RWA may be collecting your share of actual amounts paid by them for various services. Do they collect any service charge in addition to that? If not they will not come under CPA. I presume RWA is not a profit making body.

I assume RWA is not profit making body. They raise separate bills for maintenance and electricity. The maintenance is outsourced to a vendor. Now, in my case, RWA took no action on my complaints in terms of Rat infestation or removing cars from the Fire escape routes due to which I stopped paying maintenance. What options do I have to act against such negligence. Is there nothing we can do?

You can try consumer court. They may admit your case because lawyers and judges there are mostly ignorant people. Otherwise you will have to go to a civil court only

Consumer Forum attends to the complaint between the consumer and service provider, the RWA of a Housing Society is not service provider, its job is just to collect payment of electricity bill of each flat and pass it on to the electricity board, in this case electricity board in Gurugram is Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), the consumer/flat owner can lodge complaint against the service provider, DHBVN if the electricity supply has been disconected even after the payment of electricity bill not the RWA of Group Housing.

Abusing the lawyers and judges has become habit of many who know nothing about law.

Are you implying that I have no option but to keep paying timely maintenance irrespective of whether the complaint is being attended to or not. The RWA officials are favouring some residents to allow them to park in Fire Exits and there is no authority to deal with the mismanagement. The electricity is bought at wholesale price and is charged to residents basis the actual usage along with power backup and common area charges. Maintenance is a separate bill.

The remedy for the wrong doings of RWA can only be through a court of law. It may be through a civil court. Or as I suggested,  you can try consumer court also. No court will accept your not paying dues to the RWA as remedy for their wrong doings. The two are different. You are saying that the RWA is billing you for electricity under their own letter head. In other words they are bulk purchasing from one side and selling on the other side. Then what Advocate Vijay Raj Mahajan says would not be right.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Since your case is complicated case as such I require documents and same may be send to my email/PM (personal mail) for detailed legal advise.

 

With regards,

Legal Expert