CINERAMA PRIVATE LTD Vs. NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question for consideration is whether the respondent NDMC, for the purposes of assessment of rateable value / property tax, amalgamate more than one adjoining flats owned by the same assessee in a multi-storeyed building, resulting in a higher taxation burden on the assessee than if the flats had been assessed separately. The petitioner having failed in convincing the Assessor & Collector of the respondent NDMC and the Additional District Judge in appeal has preferred this petition. Notice of the petition was issued and the petitioner granted time to deposit the differential in tax. The same stands deposited. The counsel for the petitioner has informed that the excess liability owing to amalgamation so effected by the respondent NDMC is of approximately '6,00,000/- and which amount would be refundable to the petitioner in the event of this petition succeeding.

(2.) The factual matrix in which the controversy has arisen is that the petitioner vide separate Flat Buyer Agreements executed by the builder of the multi-storeyed building known as Statesman House at Barakhamba Road, New Delhi, acquired six adjoining flats and two car parking spaces in the said building. The petitioner along with the owners of other adjoining flats on the same floor, let out all the flats to the same tenant. However, the said two car parking spaces remained with the petitioner. The respondent NDMC upon letting aforesaid issued separate notices for assessment of the rateable value of each of the flats; separate objections qua each of the flats were filed by the petitioner; the petitioner in the meanwhile sold one of the six flats with one car parking space and notified the respondent NDMC of the same; however the respondent NDMC while passing the assessment order in pursuance of the notices aforesaid, amalgamated the six flats for the purposes of property tax and issued a common bill to the petitioner; that upon the petitioner objecting and also on the ground that one flat with car parking space had already been sold, the respondent NDMC excluded the said flat and car parking space from assessment but continued with common assessment of the remaining five flats and the car parking space. The tax burden upon such common tax assessment being more than what it would have been upon each of the flat being assessed separately, the petitioner objected and upon not meeting with any success, earlier preferred W.P.(C) No.225/2004 in this Court averring inter alia that it had not even been heard before the flats were amalgamated as a single assessable unit. This Court vide order dated 12th January, 2004 disposed of the earlier writ petition by directing the respondent NDMC to hear the petitioner and to then decide whether the flats could be so amalgamated or not. In pursuance thereto, an order dated 31st January, 2004 came to be made by the respondent NDMC in which it reiterated its decision of amalgamation on the basis of Sections 78 & 79 of the New Delhi Municipal Council Act, 1994.

(3.) Aggrieved therefrom the petitioner preferred statutory appeal to the Additional District Judge. The said appeal was dismissed inter alia on the ground of the respondent NDMC, vide Resolution No.12 (Q-5) dated 21st January, 2004 , having decided that "if a person has more than one flat / space in a building then for calculation of property tax, the rateable value of such flats / spaces shall be amalgamated".