Share This Article
There is a difference between a housing society with rules and a housing society with a president who has decided that he is the rules. At Aditya Heights, opposite Sarath City Mall in Hyderabad, a visitor recently found out which one she was dealing with.
She had done everything right. She obtained a valid gate pass through the society’s existing process. She arrived at the entrance with her documentation in order. She was visiting friends who live in two separate flats within the complex.
She was stopped anyway.
What happened at the gate
According to the account shared in a now-viral video, the association president had introduced a new directive — not formally documented, not communicated in advance — stating that no visitors would be permitted entry. Only relatives, with proof of relationship, would be allowed in, regardless of whether the flat in question was a family flat or not.
When she showed the gate pass, the president instructed security to cancel it on the spot. When she showed screenshots proving it had already been issued and was valid, he dismissed them. His explanation was not procedural. It was blunt: “I am the President, only my rules work here.”
The behaviour at the gate did not stop at the entry dispute. From the moment she arrived, she described the president’s tone as openly demeaning — mocking her in front of the security guard, speaking in a manner calculated to intimidate rather than inform. When she became overwhelmed and broke down, he continued. She was made to wait at the gate for over 40 minutes.
When her friends came down to help resolve the situation, his behaviour reportedly worsened. When she asked him to speak respectfully, he instructed security to remove her and close the gates.
The security guard also relayed a standing threat: the president had instructed staff that if he found anyone bringing in friends or visitors, he would personally grab them by the collar and drag them out.
Why this is not just a bad day
This is not a story about one difficult encounter. It is about what happens when the authority of a Resident Welfare Association becomes personalised — when the president stops seeing their role as a servant of the community’s rules and starts treating the community as a servant of their preferences.
RWAs in India operate in a legal grey zone. They have no formal statutory backing equivalent to a municipal body. Their authority derives from the society’s bye-laws and, ultimately, from the consent of residents. A president who unilaterally invents visitor restrictions, overrides valid passes, and threatens physical force is not enforcing rules. They are improvising power.
For tenants in particular — who are already at a structural disadvantage in most housing societies where owner-residents dominate RWA governance — this kind of unchecked authority creates a living environment that can become genuinely hostile.
What residents and visitors can do
If a gate pass has been issued under existing rules and is then cancelled without written authority or due process, that cancellation has no legal standing. A written complaint to the Apartment Owners Association — not the president individually — is a starting point. If the society’s bye-laws do not authorise visitor restrictions of this kind, the president has no mandate to enforce them.
Statements threatening physical force against residents or their guests — dragging someone out by the collar — are not society governance. They are threats, and they can be reported to the local police as such.
The video has received 54,900 likes and over 5,700 comments. Clearly, this is not an experience that feels isolated to one apartment complex in Hyderabad.
