In early 2022, Amit Dholakia, a businessman residing in the Bhagwati Bhuvan Cooperative Housing Society in Mumbai’s Malabar Hill, purchased an electric vehicle (EV). Equipped with a private garage and a willingness to install a certified charger entirely at his own expense, he approached his housing society with a straightforward request for permission. The society’s response was a definitive no. This denial was not because the installation was deemed unsafe, nor because the building’s wiring was inadequate. Rather, it was simply because no existing policy was in place to grant such a permission.
Dholakia wrote to the Registrar of Cooperative Societies. He approached the Urban Development Department. He appealed to the State of Maharashtra. Yet, no one moved. Ultimately, he took his case to the Bombay High Court.
In January 2025, a division bench of Justices G S Kulkarni and Advait Sethna ruled in his favour. The Court directed the Registrar of Cooperative Societies to finalise rules under Section 79A of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, thereby establishing a binding framework that compels housing societies to permit EV charging installations. In its ruling, the Court held that a clean, unpolluted environment is an integral part of the fundamental right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, and underscored that this right must heavily weigh on the minds of authorities tasking themselves with measures toward mass EV adoption.
That case ‘Amit Dholakia v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.’ (Neutral Citation: 2025: BHC-OS:1513-DB), was not the end. It was the opening of a national conversation. Housing society management bodies and resident committees in several other cities—acting without technical expertise or legal jurisdiction—are arbitrarily rejecting and stopping private EV infrastructure installations. This is forcing citizens into protracted, and expensive court litigation just to exercise a basic, clean-energy right.
Dholakia’s struggle in Mumbai is being replicated daily in cities across India. A resident of Greater Noida’s Nirala Estate Phase-3, a massive complex of roughly 4,000 flats, found his housing society installing just two shared EV charging points while arbitrarily withholding ‘No Objection Certificates’ from residents wishing to set up private chargers in their allotted parking bays. Resident of that society, Rachit Katyal, took his fight even further than Dholakia. He bypassed lower jurisdictions and filed a petition directly under Article 32 of the Constitution before the Supreme Court of India.
On February 24, 2026, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices to the Union of India, the State of Uttar Pradesh, Nirala Estate’s management, and its facility manager, Cushman & Wakefield. The bench sought their responses on why the Union Ministry of Power’s Guidelines for Installation and Operation of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure, 2024 were not being implemented. While the matter (Rachit Katyal v. Union of India) remains pending, its very admission signals that the Supreme Court views the obstruction of residential EV charging infrastructure not as a mere private housing dispute, but as a significant constitutional question.
These two cases, taken together, expose a central failure in India’s EV transition: the breakdown at the last mile of the charging network. The apartment parking bay, the society basement, and the private garage remain gatekept not by clear legal statutes, but by committee secretaries and resident management bodies—entities that possess neither the technical expertise nor the legal authority to dictate energy infrastructure access.
What makes this obstruction especially indefensible is that the legal framework supporting charging access already exists, it simply lacks explicit enforcement teeth at the residential level. Section 43 of the Electricity Act, 2003 mandates that every distribution licensee shall, upon application by the owner or occupier of any premises, provide an electricity supply within one month. The use of the word “shall” establishes a mandatory duty. Nowhere in this provision is the consent of a Resident Welfare Association (RWA) or housing society listed as a precondition. Rule 4 of the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020 further reinforces this principle, declaring that every consumer has a right to access electricity, with connections required to be provided within seven days of application in metropolitan areas. Once again, no society approval is required.
The Union Ministry of Power’s 2022 and 2024 consolidated guidelines went even further, explicitly stating that residents can install EV chargers using their existing electricity connections without requiring separate permissions, while directing DISCOMs to facilitate dedicated sub-meters for charging purposes.
The supporting constitutional framework is equally firm. In M C Mehta v. Union of India (1991), the Supreme Court recognised vehicular emissions as a major threat to the right to life under Article 21, mandating affirmative State action to promote cleaner alternatives. In Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar (1991), the Court held that Article 21 encompasses “the right of enjoyment of pollution-free water and air for full enjoyment of life.” Furthermore, in Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India (1996), the precautionary principle was firmly established within Indian environmental jurisprudence. This principle places the burden of proof squarely on those who resist cleaner technologies to demonstrate that their resistance is environmentally benign— an RWA that blocks an EV charger cannot discharge that burden.
India is not alone in this struggle. The countries that have successfully scaled residential EV charging did so by converting the “right to charge” from a mere policy aspiration into a legally enforceable entitlement.
For instance, Denmark amended its tenancy legislation so landlords cannot unreasonably withhold consent for EV charger installations; where no structural modifications are required, the consent requirement is effectively eliminated.
The Netherlands embedded charging mandates directly into its building code (Bouwbesluit), requiring all new residential buildings to include EV-ready electrical infrastructure while placing a legal obligation on municipalities to ensure adequate public charging for residents without private parking.
Similarly, the United Kingdom’s Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 established strict reliability standards and payment interoperability for public chargers, while classifying private charger installation as a permitted development right that requires no formal planning permission. Finally, Sweden integrated EV infrastructure into its broader climate legislation, treating charging points as essential emissions-reduction infrastructure entitled to regulatory priority.
The common thread across these jurisdictions is not goodwill or voluntary compliance. It is mandatory. Each country recognised that leaving the right to charge to the discretion of private housing bodies would produce precisely the fragmented, litigation-driven obstruction that India is now experiencing.
The Dholakia judgment pushed Maharashtra toward codified rules. The Katyal petition asks the Supreme Court to do the same for the entire country. Yet, court orders—however significant—remain an inefficient vehicle for solving a systemic crisis that manifests in every gated community, apartment tower, and cooperative housing society across urban India.
True transformation requires statutory clarity. The Electricity Act must be amended to establish the right to install a residential EV charger as an explicit, enforceable entitlement, legally obligating distribution licensees to facilitate connections without requiring third-party consent. Concurrently, state cooperative society laws should be amended to void any bye-law that restricts or conditionalizes this access beyond legitimate, specified safety requirements. Furthermore, the National Building Code must mandate EV-ready wiring in all new residential construction. Finally, DISCOMs should be directed, as a strict regulatory condition of their licenses, to process EV charging connection requests independently, bypassing society management bodies entirely.
India has made the policy commitment. The statutory foundations are largely in place. The constitutional framework is solid. What remains missing is the political will to convert a right that the courts have already implied into an operational reality that ordinary citizens can exercise without the burden of litigation.
As the Bombay High Court astutely observed in the Dholakia case, the right to clean air under Article 21 “ought to weigh on the mind of the authorities in taking prospective measures in the mass adoption of technological advancements.” The Supreme Court has now been called upon to give that observation national force.
The ultimate resolution, in both law and policy, must converge on a single outcome. There is need for a definitive “right to charge” that is explicitly written into the statute.