CHROMPET EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY Vs. TAX RECOVERY OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) INVOKING Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner herein has filed the present writ petition, seeking for a writ of certiorarified mandamus to call for the records of the first respondent, viz., the proceedings dated February 12, 1996, issued in Rules 38 and 52(2) of the Second Schedule of the Income-tax Act and to quash the same and the forbear the respondents from bringing the property belonging to the petitioner-society shown as a school layout No. 44/58 issued by the Joint Director of Town Planning, Government of Madras, in Hasthinapuram Village, Saidapet Taluk, Chengai-M. G. R. District, to sale.

(2.) IN support of the writ petition, the petitioner herein has filed an affidavit wherein he has narrated all the facts and circumstances that forced him to file the present writ petition and requested this court to allow the writ petition prayed for. Per contra, on behalf of the respondents, a counter affidavit has been filed by the first respondent rebutting all the material allegations levelled against them one after the other and ultimately requested this court to dismiss the writ petition for want of merits.

(3.) PER contra, it is contended by the Department that no documentary evidence for substantiating their contention has been filed by the petitioner in the typed set of papers and that the said letter dated July 7, 1972, said to have been written by the Pallavaram Municipality to the land owner to hand over possession of the portion shown in red for the school to the municipality has also not been enclosed in the typed set of papers and that merely because the possession of the area in question stated to have been reserved for the school in the layout plan was handed over by the defaulter to the petitioner or the municipality, no document to prove such handing over has been produced. It is also contended by respondent No. 1 that the Commissioner, Pallavaram Municipality has in his letter dated September 1, 1993, specifically endorsed the fact that the possession of the land had not been handed over by T. P. Sathiyanathan either to the petitioner or to the Pallavaram Municipality and that therefore in such circumstances it is argued by the first respondent-Department that the defaulter T. P. Sathiyanathan continued to be the owner of the area in question and hence proceedings taken by the Income-tax Department for recovering the arrears of tax due from him by sale of the said property are perfectly valid and justified in law. It is their categoric contention that no document has been produced or was produced before the first respondent-Department either by the petitioner herein or by the erstwhile owner to establish that the property in question ceased to be the property of the defaulter, he having transferred the same to the petitioner-society. According to the Department, no registered deed has been produced by the petitioner-society either to prove and establish, that it had either purchased the property in question or the same was gifted to it by the erstwhile owner, T. P. Sathiyanathan, who is the defaulter and that there is no document showing that the property in question stands in the name of the petitioner-society. Therefore, it is the strong contention of the Department that the defaulter T. P. Sathiyanathan continued to be the owner of the land in question and the petitioner cannot claim any right, title and interest therein particularly when as stated earlier by the respondents that no document has been produced by it transferring the area in question to it by the owner. Further it is also contended by the respondent-Department that if the petitioner-society is really interested in the said land, nothing prevented it from paying up the arrears so as to get the property released from attachment and thereafter obtain a valid document of title in its favour or bid at the auction and purchase the same in its own right. Therefore, it is their categoric case that so long as the property continues to be that of the defaulter and the petitioner is not able to produce any document in its favour to establish that it is the owner of the land in question, no exception can be taken to the sale of the property by the Income-tax Department for realising the arrears of tax due from the defaulter who continues to be the owner of the land in question. Therefore, according to the first respondent, there are no merits in this writ petition and the action of the first respondent in bringing the property to sale is perfectly valid and justified in law.