AHMEDABAD MUNICIPAL CORPORATION Vs. DENA BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This group of appeals has been filed by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation under Section 411 of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') challenging the judgments and the assessments of the GRV of the concerned properties made by the Small Causes Court at Ahmedabad. The Small Causes Court in the Municipal Valuation Appeals filed before it, has upset the valuation done by the Assessment Officer of the appellant and instead has fixed its own, which is not acceptable to the appellant herein. Since they involve common questions of facts and law, they are disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) The concerned properties are situated within the areas of Ahmedabad City which are subjected to imposition of property tax. For this purpose, appellant has made the assessment of the tax of the said properties, which according to it, is done in consonance with the provisions relating to the property tax as contained in the Act and the Taxation Rules. The respondents i.e. the owners/occupiers of the properties, however, were not satisfied with these assessment orders and the tax required to be paid by them to the appellant and hence they approached the Court of Small Causes under the provisions of Section 406 of the Act by way of Municipal Valuation Appeals. Before the Court of Small Causes the present respondents who were appellants before it, produced certain material in the form of document regarding agreement to sell, sale-deed of the property, valuation report prepared by the valuer or the certificate issued by the respective societies wherein the premises are situated, tax receipts, etc. to indicate the financial value of the property in question and on the basis of the same, the Court of Small Causes has arrived at its own assessment of the GRV. In these appeals the GRV arrived at by the Court of Small Causes is lesser than the assessment thereof made by the appellant and hence it has approached this Court as stated above.

(3.) The grievances, by and large, that have been, made in these appeals by the appellant are that the Court of Small Causes has not followed the proper procedure as envisaged under the Act and the Taxation Rules as contained in the Chapter VIII of the Act and also the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure as well as the Evidence Act and has based its judgment and order solely on the basis of the documents which have been produced by the present respondents purported to be indicative of value of the property and has determined the annual letting value of the same on the strength of such documents. According to the appellant, these documents were never produced before the Assessment Officer of the appellant at the time when the respondents were given the opportunity of hearing for determining the value of the property and they have produced them at a belated stage i.e. at the stage of the appeal before the Court of Small Causes and that too without examining the author of such documents. It is further contended by the appellant that the Court of Small Causes has committed grave error by taking on record and exhibiting these documents without following the proper procedure. It is the say of the appellant that there is no material on record to show what was the source of these documents and how the valuation indicated in these documents of the property in question was done. It is the grievance of the appellant that by not examining the author of such documents, the appellant has been deprived of its valuable right to cross-examine such person and to elicit correct position with regard to financial worth of the property in question. It is further submitted that the formula prescribed under the provisions of the Act and the Rules for determining the annual letting value is totally ignored by the Court of Small Causes in as much as it has arrived at its own assessment without there being any cogent evidence with regard to the cost of construction, the cost of land, the locality in which the premises in question are situated, the use to which the property in question is put, the age of the property, the quality of construction, etc. According to the appellant, such assessment; solely based on the valuers' reports, agreements to sell, unautheticated sale deeds or certificates or notes, etc. cannot be the basis for arriving at the annual letting value and the resultant rateable value of the property in question. It is the say of the appellant that the Court of Small Causes has merely acted in a mechanical fashion by keeping in view the value of the property indicated in the aforesaid documents and the GRV has been fixed on different percentage ranging from 7% to 10% or even 11% by following the case law laid down by this Court as well as the Apex Court. It has also contended that while disposing of the appeals the Court of Small Causes has not taken into consideration the principles laid down by the Apex Court and this Court in their various judgments and it has mechanically followed the ratio laid down in Rajnikant Jesingbhai Sheth v/s. Rameshchandra Kantilal reported in 1982 (1) G.L.R. page 71 for applying the different percentage. According to the appellant, the assessment made by the Court of Small Causes is therefore, not proper and it is required to be quashed and set aside.