NARAYANI SUDAKSHINA Vs. PRABHAKARAN NAIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was charged by the Shertallai Municipality for failure to pay the property tax due from two items for the year 1960-61. Demand notices were sent by registered post, but the amount was not paid. Since the petitioner was residing outside the Municipal limits and had no movable properties within the municipality distraint was impracticable and the petitioner was, therefore, prosecuted.

(2.) That demand notices were properly served is amply proved and was not, in fact, disputed in the court below. The contention raised was that the petitioner had on receipt of the demand notices sent the amount by money order, that there were no arrears of tax and as such she could not have been prosecuted. The municipality has proved that the amount received by money order has been duly credited to the arrears of tax due from the petitioner for the year 1958-59. Even assuming her case to be true, she had sent money only for the first half year and not for the full year and therefore, in any view, the learned Magistrate was justified in finding the petitioner guilty of the offence charged.

(3.) Here, in this court, the petitioner's learned counsel raised for the first time a question of limitation. According to him the complaint ought to have been filed within three months of the commission of the offence. It is stated that the property tax shall be paid by the owner within 30 days after the commencement of the next half year and so the learned counsel contends that in this case the petitioner should have paid the amount due for the first half year within 1st May 1961 and the amount due for the second half year within 1st November 1961 and when that was not paid an offence could be said to have been committed and the complaint not having been filed within three months from that date, the prosecution is barred under S.368 of the Travancore District Municipalities Act (Act 23 of 1116). The material part of S.368 is as follows: