Electricity Is Not a Bargaining Chip: Challenging a Condominium Association’s Power to Disconnect Essential Services
The District Registrar, Firms & Societies, Gurugram, moves to strike down a bye-law that let a residents’ association cut off power and lift access over disputed maintenance dues.
Office of the District Registrar, Firms & Societies, Gurugram Order dated 06.06.2025 · Proceedings under the Haryana Registration and Regulation of Societies Act, 2012
The Complaint
Our client, a resident and lawful owner of an apartment at Oakwood Estate, DLF Phase-II, Gurugram, approached the Office of the District Registrar, Firms & Societies, Gurugram, seeking a declaration that Clause 41 of the Bye-laws of the Oakwood Estate Condominium Association (OECA), titled “Enforcement of Obligations,” was null, void, inoperative and ultra vires the applicable law.
Clause 41, as framed, empowered the Board of Managers to disconnect electricity and power back-up, deny access to lifts and common areas, and withdraw essential services against any member in arrears of maintenance or utility dues for 30 days or more with the bye-law expressly contemplating civil and criminal proceedings as a further recovery tool.
The Legal Foundation of the Challenge
The petition argued that the right to access electricity is integral to the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, and that no private association including one registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 can weaponise essential services such as electricity, lifts, water or security as tools of debt recovery.
Central to the submission was an order dated 16.12.2024 passed by the Corporate Consumer Grievances Redressal Forum (CGRF) of DHBVN, in a separate matter titled, which had already held that electricity cannot be disconnected for non-payment of common area maintenance (CAM) or other society dues, and had directed OECA to desist from disconnecting grid electricity on such grounds. The petition pointed to HERC’s Notification dated 24.04.2020 and the subsequent Sales Circular D-17/2020, both of which make clear that licensee electricity supply cannot be clubbed with other recoverables such as CAM, water or DG charges, and that disconnection is impermissible so long as grid energy charges are duly paid.
Essential services such as electricity, lift access, common passage usage, water, and security systems cannot be weaponised as tools of coercion or debt recovery by any private association.
The petition further submitted that Section 43 of the Electricity Act, 2003 obliges licensees to supply electricity to every applicant who pays the requisite tariff, and that private RWAs and condominium associations have no authority under the Act to disconnect power at will. It urged the Registrar as the supervisory authority under the Societies Registration Act and the Haryana Registration and Regulation of Societies Act, 2012 (HRRS Act) to exercise its power to strike down or direct amendment of any bye-law found to be in conflict with statutory provisions or public policy.
The Association’s Response
The Governing Body of OECA opposed the petition, contending that Clause 41 had been validly adopted and registered under the HRRS Act, that no member had challenged it since its adoption, and that the Registrar lacked the authority to review a bye-law duly approved by the general body. It argued that the HRRS Act was a special statute under which HERC could not override the Association’s powers, and that the appropriate forum for a challenge to the bye-laws’ validity was a writ petition before the High Court, not a representation before the Registrar.
The Association also raised the pendency of a separate recovery suit for outstanding maintenance dues against our client before the Civil Judge (Junior Division), Gurugram, and argued that a defaulting member could not be permitted to seek the striking down of a bye-law that the rest of the membership had accepted.
The Registrar’s Findings
Having heard both sides, the District Registrar, Firms & Societies, Gurugram, recorded that Clause 41 insofar as it authorises “coercive measures … by taking recourse to withdrawal of services, disconnection of electricity/power back up, denial of access to the use of common facilities including the lifts and also pursue civil/criminal cases” is not in conformity with the HRRS Act, 2012, the Rules framed thereunder, or the Model Bye-laws.
Invoking Section 27 of the HRRS Act, 2012, which empowers the Registrar to direct amendment of a society’s Memorandum or Bye-laws where necessary to bring them into conformity with the Act, the Registrar forwarded the matter for recommendation to the State Registrar of Societies, Haryana, for necessary amendment of OECA’s Memorandum and Bye-laws.
Pending that process, the Registrar directed the Governing Body of OECA not to take any coercive action to withdraw essential services from residents while the matter remains pending under Section 27 of the HRRS Act securing our client, and every other resident of the complex, immediate protection against disconnection of electricity, water or lift access over disputed dues, regardless of how the underlying maintenance dispute is ultimately resolved.
Why This Order Matters
This order speaks to a pattern that is far from unique to one condominium in Gurugram: residents’ welfare associations across Indian cities routinely write coercive disconnection powers into their bye-laws, often treating essential services as leverage in what are, at their core, ordinary debt-recovery disputes. By recognising that such provisions cannot stand independent of statutory and regulatory protections — and by using its supervisory power under Section 27 to initiate correction rather than simply dismissing the complaint on technical grounds the Registrar’s order offers a template that residents elsewhere can point to when facing similarly worded bye-laws.
It also underscores an important procedural point: a dispute over the quantum of maintenance dues owed by an individual member, which remains separately pending before the civil court, is entirely distinct from the question of whether a society’s bye-laws may lawfully authorise disconnection of essential services as a recovery tool. The Registrar’s order proceeds on this basis the legality of Clause 41 itself, and not the merits of the underlying dues dispute, was what fell to be decided in these proceedings.
About the Advocate
This matter was represented by Mr. Atin Handuja, a practicing Advocate before the Supreme Court of India and the Founder Managing Partner of Legalfoxes Advocates and Consultants, a full-service law firm with a practice spanning litigation, dispute resolution, corporate law, taxation, intellectual property, and real estate. He is also Director of Legalfoxes Sourcing Private Limited, the firm’s legal-outsourcing arm serving clients worldwide.
This post summarises the findings of the District Registrar, Firms & Societies, Gurugram, in a regulatory proceeding under the Haryana Registration and Regulation of Societies Act, 2012. A separate civil suit relating to disputed maintenance dues remains pending before the Civil Judge (Junior Division), Gurugram. This is not legal advice.