NOVEMBER 19: Riches and fame, it would seem, are not enough to protect oneself from the vagaries of co-operative living, as a housing society of heavyweight filmstars has found out to its dismay. In fact, were it not for the intervention of the Bombay High Court, filmstars like Mamta Kulkarni, Mahima Chaudhury and Neena Gupta might have remained bereft of the rightful pleasures of a swimming pool and health club facilities at their Andheri residences.For, Justice R J Kochar of the Bombay High Court recently stayed an injunction granted by the City Civil Court that had restrained these filmstars and other members of buildings A and B, at Arshie Complex Co-operative Housing Society (proposed) at Yari Road, Versova, from ``obstructing/interfering and preventing the members of the other five buildings (C,D,E,F and G) in the same complex, from management, administration and control of the swimming pool and the club houses'' in the complex.The City Civil Court judge H S Deshpande had also restrained the members of the buildings A and B from directing their staff and servants from using the common toilets situated on the ground floors of the rest of the five buildings. The members of the two buildings were also being asked to pay a certain charge for the use of the by-now poorly maintained swimming pool and health club, despite each owner having paid an extra Rs one lakh for these facilities.In his order of November 15, 1999, Justice Kochar has stayed the September injunction of the city civil court and vacated the injunction against the filmstars. The restriction against the staff and servants of these members, from using the common toilets, thereby causing an ``embarrassing and unhygienic situation,'' has also been stayed, so the residents of the complex are expected to truly breathe easy now.It all started when, on March 8, 1999, the builder Shabbir Patel of Oscar Builders called the members of the buildings C to G for a meeting and handed over the operation and possession of the swimming pool and health club to the Association of Arshie Complex Residents, and especially members Pradeep Rathi and Kokila Shah for controlling and managing the facilities. When the high-profile members of the other two buildings realised this, they wrote letters and objected to this decision. The builder then terminated the permission given. But even so, Rathi and Shah approached the city civil court and obtained an injunction against the members of the two buildings.In his order, Judge Deshpande noted that though the complex was amalgamated and built as one to have one cooperative society, it was not yet conveyanced to the members and was still being handled by the builder. However, there were two groups in it. One belonged to the buildings A and B which have 50 residents and the rest to the buildings C to G which had 37 residents. Two different societies have been proposed by these two groups with the latter calling themselves the Sky Anchorage Cooperative housing society, while the former fancying the Arshie Complex Cooperative Housing Society.In their suit, Rathi and Shah complained that the members of A and B building had forcibly tried to break open the locks of the common toilets provided in the five buildings C to G.According to the defendants i.e., A and B members, there were no toilets in their two buildings and those provided in C to G were to be used by their servants and employees as well. They also argued that in the meeting of March 8 called by the builder, these members were given no notice.However, holding that there was no written agreement between the builder and the flat owners that the common toilets could be used by the flat owners of building A and B, the court passed the injunction restricting ``interference in the management of the swimming pool'' and also directing that the toilets could not be used by anyone without their permission.In their appeal against the order, advocates Yusuf Mulani and Milind Sakhardande argued in the high court that the lower court judge had failed to consider that all the buildings A to G were a composite complex and all the common facilities like the club house, swimming pools and toilets were for the use of all the 87 members in the complex.
