Member and Governing Body under Sections 15 and 16 Societies Registration Act

The Act's last two definitions carry more weight than their placement suggests. Section 15 says who counts as a member, and strips the vote from those more than three months in arrears; section 16 says who the governing body is, and that definition is the hinge on which property, filings, suits and State supervision all turn. Between them the two sections draw the Act's basic constitutional line: the members own the society's destiny, the governing body runs its affairs.

1. Who is a member: section 15

• For the purposes of the Act a member is a person who, having been admitted according to the rules of the society, has paid a subscription or signed the roll or list of members, and has not resigned under the rules.
• The proviso disqualifies: in all proceedings under the Act no member is entitled to vote or be counted as a member whose subscription at the time is in arrear for more than three months.
• Admission under the rules is the gate: classes of membership, qualifications, admission procedure and fees all live in the rules, and a person the rules never admitted acquires nothing by attending or donating.
• The register is the working proof. A society must be able to say, on any date, who its members are and whose subscriptions stand paid; most election disputes are won and lost on the register and the receipts.

Figure 1: Testing a claim to membership

2. The governing body: section 16

• The definition is functional: whatever the rules call the body, governors, council, committee, trustees, the one entrusted with management of the society's affairs is the governing body for the whole Act.
• The definition feeds every structural section: the section 2 particulars, the section 4 annual list, the section 5 vesting, the appointments under section 6 and the descriptions in sections 10 and 11.
• Entrustment comes from the rules, so the rules decide the body's size, election, term, quorum and powers; the Act adds nothing, which is why the drafting of the management clauses matters so much.
• Delegation. The governing body may act through office bearers and committees as the rules allow, but entrusted management cannot be abdicated wholesale to an outsider; a body that signs away management invites both member suits and State inquiry.

Figure 2: The society's two organs

3. The division of powers

Figure 3: Where the two definitions plug into the Act

• Members in meeting hold the structural powers: registration of an existing society (section 17), alteration and amalgamation (section 12), dissolution (section 13) and the destination of surplus (section 14), all on three-fifths majorities.
• The governing body holds everything the rules entrust: admissions where the rules so provide, finances, staff, property management, litigation decisions and the conduct of the society's activities.
• Accountability runs upward: the governing body is elected as the rules provide, reports to the general meeting, and its composition is published annually under section 4.
• The pattern should be argued expressly in disputes: a governing body cannot dissolve the society or alienate its identity, and a general meeting cannot seize day to day management from the body the rules entrust, except by changing the rules or the body itself in the manner provided.

4. Quick Revision

1. Admission under the rules is the only door to membership.
2. Count voters after applying the three month bar.
3. Identify the governing body functionally, by entrustment.
4. Keep structural decisions with the general meeting.
5. Prove everything from the register, receipts and filed lists.

5. Frequently Asked Questions

Does paying arrears on the eve of a meeting restore the right to vote?

The proviso bars a member whose subscription is in arrear for more than three months at the time of the proceeding, so payment before the meeting removes the disqualification unless the rules lawfully say otherwise, for instance by fixing a record date or requiring dues to be clear a set number of days before the poll. Societies anticipating contested elections do well to adopt such a rule in advance; adopting one after the dispute has erupted, to shut out one side's supporters, is the kind of manoeuvre that fails for bad faith under the Daver principles. The treasurer's dated receipts decide most of these fights, which is an argument for issuing them meticulously.

Can a non-member sit on the governing body?

The Act does not forbid it: section 16 defines the body by entrustment, not by membership, so if the rules allow nominated, co-opted or expert outsiders, their presence is lawful, and institutional societies routinely seat nominees of founders, governments or funding bodies. The constraints are practical and State-made: the rules must actually provide for it, some State laws require a minimum of elected members or restrict outsiders, and a body dominated by persons the members never chose invites challenge where the rules' scheme presupposes election. The examination point is the clean one: membership of the society and membership of its governing body are distinct statuses, each governed by the rules.

Who decides whether someone was validly admitted as a member?

First the society's own machinery, then the courts. Admission is applied for and granted as the rules provide, and disputes about it, rejection, backdating, mass enrolments before an election, are tested against the rules: who had power to admit, whether the procedure was followed, whether the fees were actually received. In States with a prescribed authority for election disputes, admission questions are usually decided there because voter lists depend on them; elsewhere the civil court declares the position. The recurring pathology is the eve-of-election membership drive; its antidote, again, is a record-date rule adopted in calm times, and registers maintained so that the genuine roll needs no forensic reconstruction.

6. Related Topics and Provisions

• Membership and expulsion in societies
• Meetings and elections in societies
• Rules and regulations of a society
• Members liable as strangers: sections 9 to 11
• Annual list under section 4
• Alteration and dissolution: sections 12 to 14