LACHMAN PRASAD AGARWAL Vs. DISTRICT MAGISTRATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By means of this petition, the petitioners are challenging the validity of the recovery proceedings initiated by the respondent Cantonment Board for realisation of arrears of house and water tax with respect to the disputed property particulars whereof are mentioned in paragraph 1 of the petition.

(2.) The challenge to the impugned recovery proceedings is two fold: first, that no notice of demand was served on the petitioners before the recovery proceedings were initiated and, second that in any case, the threatened arrest of the petitioner was without any authority of law.

(3.) We will take up the first point first. The allegation that no notice of demand was served on the petitioners has been denied in the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the Cantonment Board. The denial is supported by documents which prove beyond doubt that the petitioners had been duly served with the notice of demand. Thereupon they addressed letters to the Executive Officer of the Cantonment Board asking him to recover the tax from the tenants or from other heirs of Kamta Prasad Agarwal, the predecessor of the petitioners. Annexure CA-1 is a copy of one of these letters. In this letter the petitioner do not dispute the fact that the tax is due and recoverable. What they say is that the tax should be recovered from the tenants who are in occupation of the building in question. It is further asserted that under an agreement entered into between Ram Prasad, son of Kamta Prasad, and Sri Panna Lal Sharma, the latter has been collecting the rent since July 1979. Consequently, the taxes should be recovered from Panna Lal Sharma or the tenants.