India, Oct. 11 -- The Bombay High Court recently held that individual members of a co-operative housing society cannot assert their rights in a litigation founded on the society's contract with a third party. The court refused to allow 61 members of a housing society to intervene in a developer's suit related to conveyance and possession of the land.

A single bench of justice Jitendra Jain said, "Once a person becomes a member of a co-operative society, he loses his individuality as a separate litigating entity in the society and cannot advance independent claims in a suit that enforces an agreement to which only the society and the developer are parties."

The dispute arose from a development agreement in April 2003, between a developer...