AWHO as a Multi State Co-operative

Housing Society
Chandra Nath

May 5, 2014

nath@computer.org He is an Independent researcher engaged in research in informa-

tion security, privacy, law & justice.
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Contents
I Introduction 3
II Cooperatives 3
III The Tragedy that befell AWHO 3
IV How AWHO became a Military Autocracy & Tyranny 4
V Multi-state Home Buyer consumer cooperative 5
VI How AWHO Home Buyer was Stripped o Self Governance 6
VII The 97th amendment to the Constitution 6
VIIIAWHO Concept of Cooperative 7
IX Proof of the Pudding 8
X The AG: The Benevolent King Emperor 8
XI Violated the Rochdale Principles 9
XII Public Authorities 9
XIIIThe Tragedy in the Making 9
XIVThe New Benevolent King Emperor 10
XVAbsence of Corruption 11
XVIOpen governance 11
XVII Conclusion 12
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AWHO AS A MULTI STATE
CO-OPERATIVE HOUSING SOCIETY
I Introduction
R
ights of the members of the Society were violated by men who had nei-
ther the vision to understand the pioneers of the co-operative move-
ment like Rochdale nor the frame of mind to respect the rights of
the citizen under the rule of law. When writing about AWHO, the statement
made by US President Reagen instantly springs to mind:The nine most ter-
rifying words in the English language are: Im from the government and Im
here to help.
1
II Cooperatives
Cooperatives represent a third sector of the economy, dierent from private
enterprises and from public sector entities. Although some examples of con-
crete actions are provided, it is not possible to give very specic details on
all the issues covered. Nevertheless, cooperatives stand for transparency and
accountability.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_cooperative
2. http://goo.gl/QaWWLz : CONSUMER COOPERATIVES: DEMOC-
RACY, DEVELOPMENT, EMPLOYMENT
WHAT IS A COPERATIVE? PAGE 3
THE COOPERATIVE VALUES AND PRINCIPLES.. PAGE 5
ENSURING THE COOPERATIVE DIFFERENCE PAGE 10
COOPERATIVES & MARKET ECONOMY PAGE 12
III The Tragedy that befell AWHO
The member of a consumer cooperative is an individual person acting as a
consumer. Therefore the aim of consumer cooperatives is to meet the needs
and aspirations of consumers. The accountability of managers of a consumer
1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA
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cooperative is to the consumers themselves and not to shareholders. Demo-
cratic accountability is direct because every individual member has a right
to participate in the general assemblies. Consumer cooperatives are enter-
prises owned by consumers, managed democratically, aiming at fullling the
needs and aspirations of the members.
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IV How AWHO became a Military Autoc-
racy & Tyranny
Had the AWHO top brass been educated on this fundamental idea, they
would have developed AWHO dierently. Instead, they developed a real es-
tate business owned and operated by the Adjutant General, a PSO at Army
headquarters and selling real estate to a captive market of soldiers and
veteran. In doing this, Adjuant General used the man in uniform as em-
ployees of AWHO, not because it was consistent with the idea of cooperative
but because he has the military law to fall back on in getting things done
easier, the only model he knew and was constrained by his long military
experience and thinking! Considering that a large work force in the mili-
tary retire very early, he could have used these members of the Society who
had economical interest in the Society to the advantage but AG thought
of military discipline for his work force of the serving soldier/ocer instead
of the cooperative principles. Had it been done using the cooperative way,
the self-interest of the member community would have kept AWHO on the
rails as far as the protection of rights of the members were concerned. The
serving soldier instead worked for reinforcing the autocracy and tyranny of
the AG rather than the democratic principles on which co-operatives were
concieved by Rochdale! Misusing serving soldiers and ocers were neither
desirable nor advantageous for the tax payer ctizen. As it turned out, it
did not prove advantageous to the AWHO members either. Philosophically
speaking, the behemoth of AWHO turned out to be a military Formation
equivalent to a division or Corps commanded by the General Ocer Com-
manding of the rank of a Lieutenant General, who also happenned to be the
Adjutant General, a PSO at Army Headquarters. The Chief wanted AG to
head AWHO and AG wanted an army of soldiers and ocers who are under
military law for their own selsh reasons. None of the men in uniform raised
an alarm when the AWHO was turnng to be an autocratic, tyrannical and
2
Euro Coops, CONSUMER CO-OPERATIVES DEMOCRACY,DEVELOPMENT,
EMPLOYMENT, http://www.eurocoop.org/dmdocuments/publication_report/
ConsumerCooperatives08.pdf
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centrally controllled military bureaucratic organization rather than a vibrant
democratic consumer member controlled consumer co-operative concieved by
Rochdale as the above paper describes.
V Multi-state Home Buyer consumer coop-
erative
AWHO is a multi-state Home Buyer consumer cooperative built to fulll the
aspirations of the veteran and serving soldier home buyer to own a home
and NOT a public enterprise governed by the public servant to be built
with public money (or for that matter Regimental Funds) for charitable
purposes to be dispensed at the benevolence of the KING EMPEROR
the Adjutant General. AWHO in its enthusiasm for charitable purposes
for the veteran and the soldier managed to get exemption from Income Tax
stating that it was Regimental Funds which is a stark lie and cheating
the tax payer, the government and the AWHO Member. Every ruppee that
was surrupticiously made as prot of AWHO came from the pocket of the
AWHO member ( veteran and the soldier) and NOT from the Regimental
Funds. AWHO, a society keeping 100% of the prots which it should not
have made in the rst place. When greed overcame the AWHO, it kept the
prot gures secret from the members lest they shuld object. This itself is
strange because
1. If members are not members of the Consumer cooperative, why is a
public servant, the Adjutant General, in the business of real estate
business?
2. By declaring members are not members but just allottees, members
were denied all the rights and privileges of members like
(a) Being eligible for highest oce of governance
(b) Being eligible to vote for the Board of Management.
(c) Having authority to supervise the functioning of AWHO
(d) Supervisory control of the nances of AWHO.
(e) Not even eligible to see the audited accounts of the assets and
liabilities and prot report of AWHO
(f) democratically approving the rules before their intoduction.
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VI How AWHO Home Buyer was Stripped
o Self Governance
In one stroke, the members were removed from all governance of the Society.
This a master stroke of genius of the Adjutant General who was just another
founding member. And he appoints himself as life time appontment of the
Chairman of AWHO. Of course, when the AG changes due to posting or
retirement, the Chairman, AWHO also passes on to the new AG. This was
surreptitiously passed o as meeting the resuirements of the periodical and
recurring election of Chairman of the Society and the members of the Board
of Management. With this deception, the military coup detat of the de-
mocaratiacally governed Society was complete! Worse still, the Home Buyer
cooperative was taken over by the real estate builder, the Adjutant General
of Army Headquarters! Thus AWHO became a builder controlled Society
with no semblance of Home-buyer/consumer Society but yet able to enforce
rules of the Society on the Home buyer/consumer! AWHO thus became just
a facade of a Society but actally a 100% the real estate builder interest con-
trolled with none of the members wiser as to what has hit them in the name
of Welfare of the Soldier!
VII The 97th amendment to the Constitu-
tion
The 97th amendment to the Constitution of India specically denes a multi
state co-operative society with objective not conned to a state registered
under any law for the time being in force relating to such co-operative society.
The salient features of the Amendment to the Constitution are:
1. Insertion of new article 43 B in Part IV of the Constitution providing
for the State obligation to promote voluntary formation, autonomous
functioning, democratic control and professional management of the
cooperative societies;
2. Incorporation of cooperative societies on the principles of voluntary
formation, democratic member control, member economic participation
and autonomous functions;
3. Conduct of election of a cooperative society by an independent author-
ity;
4. Fix term of ve years of oce bearers of the cooperative society;
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5. Supersession of Board of cooperative society for a period of not exceed-
ing six months;
6. Independent professional audit of the cooperative societies;
7. Convening of the General Body meeting of every cooperative society
within a period of six months of the close of the nancial year;
8. Access to every member of the society to the books, information and
the accounts of the cooperative society;
9. Filing of the returns by every cooperative society within six months of
the close of every nancial year;
10. Free, fair, impartial and timely elections of cooperative societies by the
State Election Commission or by any other appropriate and indepen-
dent body as may be provided by State law;
11. Audit of the cooperative societies to be carried by the auditors from
the government approved panel of auditors or rms;
12. Maximum number of 21 Directors to be applicable to all cooperative
societies irrespective of their size; and
13. The Legislature of a State make provisions for cooption of members of
the Board of persons with experience in Banking, management, nance
and specialization in any other eld relating to the objects and activities
of the co-operative society as Member of the Board of such Society.
14. Co-opted members shall not exceed two in number.
15. Election of the Board will be conducted by the State election commis-
sion with the members voting.
16. Co-opted members not to be eligible to be elected as oce-bearers of
the Board.
The idea is to ensure democratic control of the Society by Members.
VIII AWHO Concept of Cooperative
In case of AWHO, every letter and the spirit of the cooperative is thwarted
as follows:
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1. No general body will meet,
2. No elections to Board.
3. Only coopted members (Ex-ocio as AWHO calls it) that too exceeding
2 (actually nearly 8 or 9) will be eligible to be Members of the Board
and that too all nominated or usurped on their own as against the
Constitution of India amendment which says coopted members are not
even eligible to become oce bearers of the Board!
It is total topsy turvy of the Constitutional provisions (violated with
deliberate abandon) for the governance of the cooperative perhaps because
the Society was registered under the wrong Act: Registration of Societies Act
1860 instead of the proper multi state cooperative law and the constitutional
amendment passed by the Parliament of independant India.
IX Proof of the Pudding
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. No wonder that AWHO has
violated the letter and spirit of the constitution and 97th Amendment and
has turned out to be the monstrous tyranny by the very co-opted members (
who are there NOT because they are experts in the objects and activities of
the co-operative society as required by the Constitution of India) and ruled
by them through secret and unpublished rules (many of which are against
the Constitution of India and statutes ) totally against the interests of the
members.
X The AG: The Benevolent King Emperor
The Benevolent King Emperor (Adjutant General) and his appointee MD,
AWHO have turned out to be not so benevolent and turned out instead
tyrants who ruled as they pleased, ruled by secret unpublished rules, cheated
the members of their rights, their money, the quality of service provided
and the quality of construction, quality of the architectural items of the
houses and the schedule all without paying compensation to the consumers
as required by the law. No thought or actual experiment were required to
come to the conclusion that the The Benevolent King Emperor does not
work in 21st century where democracy had replaced most of the empires.
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XI Violated the Rochdale Principles
Thus AWHO has violated the Rochdale Principles of Cooperatives based
on the values of selfhelp, selfresponsibility, democracy, equality, equity and
solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe
in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring
for others. And AWHO went against each one of these principles. At rst
glance,this may seem a set of theoretical ideas dicult to implement in prac-
tice but the cooperative movement has developed tools to bring these val-
ues to real life.( http://www.eurocoop.org/dmdocuments/publication_
report/ConsumerCooperatives08.pdf )
XII Public Authorities
How can public authorities better take into consideration the specic nature
of cooperatives? It has to be assumed that:
1. Public authorities respect the aspirations of individual citizens and the
democratic process through which they establish cooperatives; by de-
nition, in a democratic society public authorities do not undermine the
will of civil society;
2. Public authorities share some of the same goals as cooperatives such as
sustainable development, growth and employment and therefore their
actions are complementary.
If these two assumptions are correct, the logical conclusion is that pub-
lic authorities should not only create a favorable legal, economic and social
environment for cooperatives but they should also actively promote the cre-
ation and activity of cooperatives. Creating a cooperative society should
be as simple, cheap and unbureaucratic as any other type of enterprise but
unfortunately sometimes it is not the case.
Representative of We the People did this by coming up with the 97th
Amendment to the Constitution of India. Co-operative Society has now
come part of the constitution of india after passage of this constitutional
amendment.
XIII The Tragedy in the Making
But our own Military Brass controlling the AWHO was neither aware of
the constitution of India nor was aware of its implication to we the people.
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Instead of respecting the constitutional amendment, it has violated the letter
and spirit of this constitutional amendment including:
1. Rochdale Principles of co-operatives.
2. Statutes handed down by the British for disciplined demcratically gov-
erned society registered under Registration of Societies Act of 1860.
3. Consumer Cooperative Laws of the land.
4. Domain laws of Consumer protection.
5. Domain laws of real estate business.
6. Constitution of India and its 97th amendment
XIV The New Benevolent King Emperor
And all this in the name of welfare of the veteran and the soldier and in the
best interests of the Benevolent King Emperor, Chairman & BoM, AWHO
, MD, AWHO, and the Board of Governors, AWHO and its President, the
Chief of Army Sta!
Comes now the New Benevolent King Emperor, President, User Com-
mittee appointed by the MD, AWHO. The military has sworn to protect the
Constitution of India from enemies foreign and domestic. At least that is
what he had sworn with We the People of India as silent witness to the
proceedings.
Long live the trust the lowly members repose on the new Benevolence
of the King Emperor. And we live in a democratic republic of India in this
21st century where royal prerogative is thing of the past but then that is
just incidental to the mindset of the subjects of the Royalty which can be as
subjugated as the subjects of the Royalty of the 12, 13 and 14th centuries of
Europe and Asia!
Long Live the new Benevolent King Emperor and the trust we, the sub-
jects repose on HIM. There is reason why the election to the management
of the the Owners Cooperative can not be left to the owners and the reasons
are well known to AWHO and the Chairman, AWHO. They had screwed
up the AWHO Cooperative Society and they can not rest till they screw up
the governance of the Owners Society, too! How can the task be left to the
owners of the dwelling units? It is against all the laws of the land, but then,
who is bothereed of the laws in AWHO, any way.
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XV Absence of Corruption
The absence of corruption - conventionally dened as the use of public power
for private gain - is one of the hallmarks of a society governed by the rule
of law, as corruption is a manifestation of the extent to which government
ocials abuse their power or fulll their obligations under the law. Forms of
corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, improper inuence by public
or private interests, and misappropriation of funds or other resources.
3
Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light
the most ecient policeman. OTHER PEOPLES MONEY -
CHAPTER V The Louis D. Brandeis
By total lack of transparency and refusal to answer any serious communi-
cation with the Society, AWHO working exactly as a private sole proprietor
ensures that the members whose money is used on trust is not allowed to
have even an inkling of the corruption, misuse and mismanagement in con-
struction of the houses.
XVI Open governance
Open governance is essential to the rule of law. It involves engagement,
access, participation, and collaboration between the government and its citi-
zens, and plays a crucial role in the promotion of accountability. Requesting
information from public authorities is an important tool to empower citizens
by giving them a way to voice their concerns and demand accountability
from their governments. Open government is far more than transparency,
and encompasses elements such as clear, publicized, and stable laws; admin-
istrative proceedings that are open for public participation; ocial drafts of
laws and regulations that are available to the public; and the availability of
ocial information.
4
. Inspite of all this, we have our Society, which has
been declared an instrumentality of the state
5
ghting tooth and nail for
total lack of transparency, no right to information to the members and no
right to reply. There must indeed be a lot they(AWHO) want to conceal
from us the members!
3
http://worldjusticeproject.org/factors/absence-of-corruption
4
http://worldjusticeproject.org/factors/open-government
5
vide Delhi High Court ruling xxxxxxxxxxx
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XVII Conclusion
Let me close with another quote from President Reagen:
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big ap-
petite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
You can easily say that about AWHO considering that they could charge
an escalation of 480% where as the industry cost escalation of construction
for the period was only 78% and would refuse to reveal in what item the
cost has gone up so tremendously and if the reality of details of escalation
if revealed it will embarass the country as if it is a national security secret.
It would embarrass the Chairman, AWHO, no doubt, because it will open
a Pandoras Box of corruption, mis-governance, cheating and violaton of
all laws to boot in AWHO. In fact, the irresponsibility is like that of the
Hotel who would refuse to reveal the break down of the bill but expects the
customer to pay it up with out knowing how the bill added upto 400% over
and above the the expected amount. Hence, it ts in with what Reagen said
about baby with the alimentary canal with big apetite and greed for money
and power at one end and total lack of responsibility at the other end. This
is inspite of the fact that the Chairman, BoM is only a trustee and under
Trusteeship they are bound to full disclosure to the beneciaries!
Society is produced by our wants, and government by wicked-
ness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our
aections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The rst is
a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing,
but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its
worst state an intolerable one; for when we suer, or are exposed
to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might ex-
pect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is
heightened by reecting that we furnish the means by which we
suer.
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AWHO usurped & controlled by public servants is prepared to violate
every tenet of applicable Rule of Law (Constitution, Statutes and case laws)
and repeatedly commit crimes against its own members all for greed for more
money and more power. I want to see (a) whether any of these defamed
parties will threaten to sue; and (b) what their clever lawyers will seek to
6
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
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claim is the defamatory meaning of my statement.
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Is the Chairman and
MD, AWHO listening?
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http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/1408202/
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