Advocate Parab added, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, majority of the courts, tribunals including the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court went online. India aims to reach the 50th Global Ease of Doing Business World Rank, where one of the objects to be fulfilled by states is technology-based governance. Singapore is in first position in terms of dispute resolution (average time taken is 65 days) while India ranks 163rd as average time taken for dispute resolution is 1,445 days.”

“The co-operative sector, especially the co-operative housing societies, has to implement technology-based governance through an online portal as:  i) it will help provide uniformity in the adjudication process and ii) there will be a single window system for self-redevelopment of housing societies,” he added.

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‘Restart defunct portal now’

CA Ramesh Prabhu, secretary, Mumbai Suburban District Co-operative Housing Federation Limited said, “The cooperative department in 2014 had initiated online registration of societies, updating committee details, annual returns, etc. on www.mahasahakar.maharashtra.gov.in. It was functional for nearly two to three years. Due to shortage of space and not paying maintenance charges, it became defunct. It is high-time that this portal is made functional. The government and cooperative department need to implement an online complaint redressal system and make it compulsory to accept complaints in online mode, similar to MahaRERA, and then hearing should also be held through video conference and the orders posted online. In this digital era, expecting everything in physical form is a waste of time, energy and money.”

Advocate Vinod Sampat, founder and president of Flat Users Residents Welfare Association said, “There is an urgent need to digitise the records of the Co-operative Department. There are more than 1,25,000 co-operative housing Societies in the state of Maharashtra. It is crystal clear that it lacks transparency. One fails to understand why the co-operative department is not digitalising its records. The Right to Information Act was introduced in 2005 so that there is utmost transparency which is lacking in the co-operative department, though 17 years have passed since the introduction of RTI Act. To begin with, a system should be introduced whereby an officer must share the events of the day through web camera/live streaming. Whatever work is done should be simultaneously updated on the website of the department. If orders are posted online, members of the public will get an idea of the working of the co-operative department in a better manner.”