Can one person hold two committee posts?

Holding two office-bearer posts simultaneously - like secretary and treasurer - is barred or strongly discouraged under most frameworks because it collapses the internal check between authorizing and recording payments. One person, one office is the safe rule.

Are committee members personally liable for society losses?

They can be. Under provisions like Section 88 of the Maharashtra Act, office bearers can be surcharged for losses caused by negligence or misapplication of funds - which is why documented decisions and clean records protect the committee itself.

Can committee members be paid for their work?

Committee service is honorary; honoraria or sitting allowances are permissible only where bye-laws provide and the general body sanctions. Salaries to office bearers outside that framework invite audit objections.

Who signs cheques and contracts for the society?

Typically the secretary jointly with the chairman or treasurer, per the bye-laws and the bank mandate resolution. Single-signatory operation defeats the control structure and appears in audit remarks.

What happens if a committee member resigns mid-term?

The committee can co-opt or the vacancy fills per bye-laws; if resignations bring the committee below quorum, the registrar can appoint an administrator until elections - continuity planning matters.

GOVERNANCE · 12 MIN READ

Managing committee roles and responsibilities

Most committee friction comes from unclear ownership rather than from disagreement. This is what each office actually holds, where personal liability arises, and what a proper handover contains.

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K. ManiFOUNDER, KEYMATRIXLast reviewed 31 August 2026

IN SHORT

A managing committee typically comprises a chairman who presides over meetings, a secretary responsible for notices, minutes, records and statutory filings, a treasurer accountable for accounts and funds, and committee members holding portfolios. Duties and liabilities are set by the applicable state Act and the registered bye-laws.

How a managing committee is structured

The managing committee is the body elected by the general body to run the society between general meetings. Its size, composition, tenure and the offices within it are prescribed by the applicable Act and the registered bye-laws — commonly somewhere between five and fifteen members depending on the size of the society, with a tenure of one to five years again depending on the state.

The critical constitutional point, and the one most often misunderstood, is that the committee is an agent of the general body and not a governing authority in its own right. It exercises the powers the bye-laws delegate to it. Decisions reserved to the general body — the budget, the maintenance rate, bye-law amendments, major expenditure above the delegated limit, disposal of society property — remain with the general body regardless of how confident the committee is that it knows better.

Committee members serve in an honorary capacity in most frameworks. They are volunteers, generally unpaid, and they take on genuine legal duties in exchange for nothing but the work. That is worth stating plainly to anyone considering standing, and it is also why the liability section below matters.

The committee is an agent of the general body. It has delegated powers, not inherent authority.
Reserved matters stay reserved. Budget, rate, bye-law amendment and major spend belong to the general body.
Members serve honorarily. Unpaid, and carrying real duties.

THE OFFICES

The key roles

These are the common allocations under most model bye-laws. Your registered bye-laws are what actually assign them, and some societies distribute differently — a joint secretary for records, or a separate portfolio holder for security or maintenance.

Chairman

Presides over general body and committee meetings, and in most bye-laws holds a casting vote in the event of a tie. The chair is a procedural office rather than an executive one: it does not carry unilateral authority to decide or spend, and a chairman acting alone outside a committee resolution is usually acting without power. Signs minutes and, commonly, is a joint signatory on the society’s bank accounts.

Secretary

The office that carries the most work. Responsible for convening meetings and issuing notices within the prescribed periods, recording and circulating minutes, maintaining the statutory registers, custody of records and correspondence, and making the filings the Act requires. In practice the secretary is the officer whose failure most often creates a procedural defect, because notices and minutes are where challenges land.

Treasurer

Accountable for the society’s funds: maintaining books of account, ensuring receipts are issued and banked, preparing the budget and the annual statements for the general body, coordinating the audit, and ensuring statutory dues are paid. Normally a joint signatory. The treasurer should not be the sole person with access to accounts — dual control is the single most effective safeguard a small society can adopt.

Committee members

Attend and vote at committee meetings, and in most societies hold a portfolio — maintenance, security, amenities, accounts support. Their duty is collective as well as individual: a committee member who attends and votes for a decision shares responsibility for it, and one who consistently fails to attend may in some frameworks be deemed to have vacated office.

Legal duties and personal liabilities

Committee members owe duties to the society: to act within the powers the bye-laws confer, to act in the society’s interest rather than their own, to exercise reasonable care in managing its affairs, and to keep proper accounts and records. These are real obligations and not merely aspirational.

Personal liability is the question every prospective committee member asks, and the honest answer is that it exists but is bounded. Acting honestly, within the bye-laws, and on a properly minuted committee decision, a member is generally protected — the society bears the consequences of collective decisions. Liability arises at the edges: acting beyond the powers conferred, negligence causing loss, breach of a statutory duty such as failing to deposit statutory dues, and any element of dishonesty or personal benefit. Several state Acts contain express provisions for surcharge proceedings against office bearers for loss caused by negligence or misapplication of funds.

The practical protections follow from that. Minute decisions, including dissent where a member disagrees. Keep expenditure within the delegated authority and take the general body’s approval where required. Maintain dual signatories and never let one person control both authorisation and payment. Pay statutory dues on time, since these attract personal exposure in a way that ordinary trading decisions do not. And consider whether the society should hold appropriate insurance for office bearers — a question worth putting to your insurer and your auditor.

Act within delegated powers. The most common source of exposure is a committee doing what only the general body could.
Minute everything, including dissent. A recorded objection is a member’s protection.
Never allow single-person financial control. Dual signatories and separated authorisation and payment.
Statutory dues carry sharper exposure. Late deposit of deducted amounts is treated differently from a commercial misjudgement.

Tenure, elections and vacancies

Tenure is fixed by the applicable Act and bye-laws — commonly one to five years, with several states prescribing five for cooperative housing societies. Some frameworks limit consecutive terms, and some reserve seats for women or for particular categories. A committee continuing beyond its term without a valid election is not a lawful committee, whatever the practical convenience, and decisions taken by it are vulnerable.

Casual vacancies — resignation, death, or a member ceasing to be eligible — are filled in the manner the bye-laws prescribe, usually by co-option by the remaining committee for the balance of the term, sometimes with a limit on how many co-opted members the committee may have. A committee that falls below the minimum number the bye-laws require may not be able to act validly at all.

Resignation should be in writing to the committee and formally accepted and minuted, and the resigning member’s access to accounts, records and systems should be revoked on the same day. Committees are consistently poor at this last step, and former office bearers retaining bank access or system logins for years is common enough to be worth checking on the day you read this.

A committee past its term is not a valid committee. Its decisions are open to challenge.
Fill vacancies the way the bye-laws prescribe. And check whether co-option is limited.
Revoke access the day a member leaves office. Bank mandates, records and system logins.

HANDOVER

The handover checklist between committees

Five headings. The fifth is the one that gets forgotten and the one that creates real exposure.

Financial position and books

Current bank balances with statements, the cash book and ledgers up to date, outstanding dues per member with ageing, unpaid liabilities and commitments, fund balances, and the last audited accounts with the audit rectification report.

Statutory records and filings

Member and share registers, nomination register, minute books for general body and committee meetings, the registered bye-laws and any amendments, the registration certificate, and the status of every filing due to the Registrar.

Contracts, assets and compliance

All live contracts with their expiry dates, the asset register, insurance policies with renewal dates, statutory compliances including fire NOC, lift licences and any structural audit obligations, and the list of vendors with contact details.

Open matters and disputes

Pending complaints and their status, disputes with members, vendors or the builder, ongoing litigation with the name of the advocate, and every resolution of the general body that remains unexecuted.

Access and authorities

Bank mandate changes filed, system access transferred and old access revoked, keys and physical custody of records handed over, and the change of committee reported to the Registrar. Do this within days of the election, not weeks.

Frequently asked questions

: Holding two office-bearer posts simultaneously - like secretary and treasurer - is barred or strongly discouraged under most frameworks because it collapses the internal check between authorizing and recording payments. One person, one office is the safe rule.
: They can be. Under provisions like Section 88 of the Maharashtra Act, office bearers can be surcharged for losses caused by negligence or misapplication of funds - which is why documented decisions and clean records protect the committee itself.
: Committee service is honorary; honoraria or sitting allowances are permissible only where bye-laws provide and the general body sanctions. Salaries to office bearers outside that framework invite audit objections.
: Typically the secretary jointly with the chairman or treasurer, per the bye-laws and the bank mandate resolution. Single-signatory operation defeats the control structure and appears in audit remarks.
: The committee can co-opt or the vacancy fills per bye-laws; if resignations bring the committee below quorum, the registrar can appoint an administrator until elections - continuity planning matters.