This is a case where a cooperative society is trying to retrospectively extract money that was paid as a compensation to an ex member. Case is from a society in Andheri East Mumbai.
The incident dates back to more than 2 years while I was still residing in the society. Just for your reference, I sold my property in 2014 and have purchased another property in a society close by. After the unfortunate incident of a coconut falling on my car and the windscreen of it getting completely damaged, I had written to the society raising issues of safety within the society premises and asking a question about who is liable to pay for my loss that was out of sheer negligence in maintaining the society compound. A similar incident happened with another resident of the society a day earlier to mine, who happened to be the society treasurer at that point in time and she claimed compensation. The then chairperson called and informed me to also stake claim and thereby the society compensated both of the members via cheque duly signed by all stakeholders of the society, within a month or so. Since I did get compensated I also did not claim insurance.
Cut to now, a year after I have sold my flat, handed over the property to new owners, the society is harassing me and asking me to pay back this compensation that I received, saying that their audit committee has not allowed this as it is not as per rules of the society. My questions are:
1) Is such retrospective claim allowed?
2) If society committee has made error of judgement and not waited till the AGM to pay compensation, is it the claimant's fault and should he/she made a scapegoat?
3) What kind of legal action can I initiate in case the harassment becomes unbearable?
4) Can the society stop the share certificate transfer of this said flat in the name of the new members due to this pending amount - Amount is about Rs 13,000
Asked 10 years ago in Civil Law
