Appeal to Start e-Filing Services for Housing Societies to Submit Complaints at the RCS Office

Appeal to Start e-Filing Services for Housing Societies to Submit Complaints at the RCS Office

I have sent the following appeal to various authorities.

To                                                                                                                                                       April 19, 2024  

The Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS), Delhi Government
Old Court Building, Parliament Street, New Delhi 110 001

Copy for Urgent Action to: e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India.

Subject: Appeal to Start e-Filing Services for Submitting Complaints at the RCS Office

Appeal by: Rakesh Raman, a journalist and social activist

Dear Officer,

I am a government’s national award winning journalist and founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation in New Delhi. As an anti-corruption and environmental activist, I have been running for the past six years the “Clean House” service to report about crime and corruption happening in Delhi’s cooperative group housing societies (CGHS) where millions of people suffer because of extreme corruption and lawlessness.

With my years of experience of dealing with housing society cases, I have gathered that these societies have become dangerous centres of crime and corruption. The crimes in these housing societies are being committed by the management committee (MC) members or administrators in connivance with the corrupt officials of Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS) of Delhi Government, Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Delhi Police, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), and a few other departments. 

Since the corrupt MC members use public money of society members to apparently bribe the government officials, there is hardly any action taken against them. Therefore, the MC members – in connivance with the government functionaries – commit crimes with impunity and openly defy the government directives, including the orders of the RCS office which is the apex government department to deal with society affairs.

The RCS office knows that rampant criminal activities are happening in housing societies, but the RCS officials hardly take any punitive action against the criminal MC members who presumably bribe the RCS officials to circumvent the law and commit crimes. In its order dated 15.04.2024, the RCS office admitted that the group housing societies are not even getting their accounts audited for years and hold Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and Special General Body Meetings (SGBMs) in an illegal manner to hide their financial crimes. [ You can click here to read the RCS order dated 15.04.2024. ]

However, the criminal MC members get off scot-free because they misuse the residents’ money for bribery and to defend the cases filed against them in courts.

Moreover, the RCS office ostensibly directs all societies to make their exclusive websites and upload all their information transparently on the websites so that corruption by MC members or administrators could be checked. However, almost all the housing societies blatantly defy the RCS orders about websites and keep committing crimes without any fear of punishment. [ You can click here to read one of the RCS orders about websites. ]

In this atmosphere of lawlessness, the residents who live in hundreds of group housing societies of Delhi are suffering and they have no forum where they could formally complain against their criminal MC members or administrators. The RCS officials simply ignore residents’ complaints filed by post and email or send perfunctory notices to the MC members without taking legal action against them.

Although the aggrieved residents or ordinary members of housing societies have the option to file their complaints through the online Public Grievance Monitoring System (PGMS) of Delhi Government or the Listening Post service of the Lt. Governor (LG) of Delhi, both these online services are ineffective. The officials sitting behind PGMS or LG Listening Post are so corrupt and delinquent that they seldom resolve public grievances as no accountability is fixed for them. [ You can click here to read the complaint against PGMS and LG Listening Post. ]

As the filing of legal cases in traditional courts is quite cumbersome and legal services are very expensive, the residents of housing societies do not have any reliable administrative forum where they could get justice and relief from the criminality of MC members or administrators.

REQUEST FOR ACTION

In order to provide a simple judicial platform to residents so that they could file their cases under the Delhi Cooperative Societies Act, 2003 (DCS Act, 2003) or under the provisions of Indian Penal Code (IPC), the RCS office should establish an e-Filing system on the lines of e-Filing system offered by the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India. The e-Filing service at the level of the RCS office will also reduce litigation in traditional courts which are already struggling to cope with the massive pendency of legal cases.

Note: Since the e-Filing system of courts is not yet stable, the RCS office should create a simplified online system on which people could file their complaints against the MC members or even against the irresponsible RCS officials. 

[ You can click here to read the complaint about the flawed e-Filing system that I sent on April 9, 2024 to the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India, Department of Justice (Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India), and other authorities with the appeal to revamp and redevelop the e-Filing system. ]

I hope that you will do the needful urgently and inform me about the steps you are taking to set up the web-based e-Filing platform at the RCS office.

Contact

Rakesh Raman
Editor, RMN News Service [ Website ]
Founder, RMN Foundation [ Website ]
463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16, Sector 4
Dwarka, Phase I, New Delhi 110 078, India
WhatsApp / Mobile: 9810319059 | Contact by Email