India, Dec. 8 -- The Bombay High Court has ordered a fresh verification of whether a small premises inside the historic Marlboro House Cooperative Housing Society on Pedder Road can legally be treated as an independent flat, a question that has fuelled a bitter divide among the Art Deco building's residents.

On Friday, the court found that membership had been granted to a resident without checking if the so-called flat actually existed as a separate unit in the sanctioned building plan. The ruling has temporarily paused a dispute in which one group of residents alleges that a former servant room was wrongly converted into a new flat to create an extra vote ahead of the society's elections.

How the dispute began

Society members Uday Dal...