MUMBAI, March 26 -- The Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday struck down an order of the divisional joint registrar who had granted membership of a housing society in Bhandup West to purchasers of five flats that "simply do not exist". The court noted that what the developer had, in fact, sold to the two purchasers who sought membership of the housing society, were refuge areas in the residential buildings. Observing that the society was right in refusing membership to the purchasers, the court said "the refuge area cannot be considered as a flat or even a raw flat". A single judge bench of justice Firdosh Pooniwala said that the housing society granting membership to the two purchasers would be a direct violation of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, as the number of society members would exceed the number of flats in them. "This court would be loathe to put its imprimatur on an illegal act of this kind," justice Pooniwala said in his judgment on Wednesday. Four different housing societies that manage 10 of the 16 buildings in Dheeraj Dreams Building, in Bhandup West, had moved HC in 2023 challenging an order of July 22, 2022, passed by the divisional joint registrar, co-operative societies, that directed the societies to admit Hukamsingh Sewadsha and Chetansingh Sewadsha as members of the society. The Sewadshas claimed that they had purchased five flats from the developer -- Housing Development and Improvement India Ltd -- through a sale agreement on April 30, 2019. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) chief engineer had issued a full occupancy certificate (OC) to the housing societies on September 5, 2009 to build Dreams consisting 16 wings. The plan annexed with the OC showed as many as five flats in vacant spaces, the societies told the court. The 15th floor of wings D, P and O, and the eighth floor of wing I were shown as flats in the plan when, in fact, there were constructions in the vacant spaces, the court was informed. The societies said that errors in this plan were exploited to make the illegal sale of the refuge areas. The housing society's counsel S B Shetty argued that the divisional joint registrar had given legal sanctity to unconstructed flats by asking the societies to make the Sewadshas their members. The Sewadshas' counsel, however, said the divisional joint registrar had arrived at a finding that the flats were separate from the refuge area, which could not be challenged in a writ petition before HC. Justice Pooniwala, however, referred to floor plans of the flat and said, "This clearly shows that the flats claimed by Respondent Nos 3 and 4 (Sewadshas) are actually refuge areas and not flats." The court also observed that the certificate of entitlement for deemed conveyance was issued by the district deputy registrar to the housing societies on May 31, 2017. After that, the court said, the developer "stood divested of its rights in the property", and, therefore, the sale agreements between the developer and Sewadshas in 2019 were "illegal". The court also noted that the BMC had been assessing the contested open spaces as refuge areas and had not levied property tax on them....