Can apartments bar guests at night? Resident, guard come to blows

Videos of a security guard getting assaulted for not allowing guests to enter an apartment complex in Doddabele went viral on social media recently. While they condemned the assault, netizens were taken aback by the entry restriction, which prevents outsiders from entering the premises after 12 am.

Varun, a final-year LLB student of KLE Law College, wanted to bring guests to his flat in Provident Sunworth City past midnight. “When the guests were not allowed in, he hit the security guard. In turn, some security personnel got together and tried to hit him and his friends,” an officer from the Kumbalgodu Police Station told Metrolife. In the video, Varun claims to be a DCP’s son and that he is related to Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah. “This is not true,” said the official. Later, Varun and the security guard approached the cops wanting to drop the case, he added.

Legal side

Lawyer, K M Sai Apabharana, says that if such restrictions, laid out as bylaws by the apartment complex’s association, are violated, it will have to approach the civil court to enforce them. “At such a point, the question likely to arise is whether the bylaw imposing restrictions (on whether a flat owner can bring guests to his house post a specific hour) is reasonable or not. If the court finds the restriction unreasonable, it cannot be imposed. If a bylaw seems unreasonable, the residents can approach the competent civil court to amend the bylaw,” she explained.

Apartment associations usually fall under the Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act, under which certain reasonable restrictions can be imposed.