SONABAI Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE, SAGAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Appellant is the owner of a house, No. 261 in Sarafi Ward, Sagar. The house consists of sis kothas for keeping shops. The Municipal Committee, Sagar, numbered these kothas by giving them sub -numbers as 261/1, etc. and each tenant of the shops was registered in the demand register of the Municipal 1 Committee for purposes of levy of a tax on latrines and cesspools. There being no private latrine or cesspool attached to these kothas the Municipal Committee was collecting the general tax on latrines and cesspools from the tenants. It appears from the order of the Board of Revenue that when the assessment was made separately on each kotha an objection was made but it was turned down. That was as far back as 1950. Since then the tax was regularly paid by the Appellant, though she contended that for a year or two the tenants were paying the tax. Subsequently, however, in 1953 -54 the Municipal Committee served a notice upon the owner of the house, the present Appellant, to pay the tax. Against that notice of demand the Appellant took an appeal to the Sub -Divisional Officer, Sagar, purporting to be under Sections 83 and 84 of the Central Provinces and Berar Municipalities Act, 1922. Her contention was that if the tax was to be collected from her the whole of the building should be treated as one -house and the rate applicable to a single unit should be applied. In the alternative, if the tax was to be collected as on each of the kothas separately then the persons to pay were the tenants and not she.

(2.) THE Sub -Divisional Officer after holding that the appeal was within time under Sections 83 and 84 of the Central Provinces and Berar Municipalities Act, which it patently was not, accepted the contentions of the Appellant and ordered that the tax be collected as on a single unit. The conclusion of the learned Sub -Divisional Officer can best be stated in his own words:

(3.) IT appears that the Municipal Committee treated the house as divided into six tenements and each tenement as a house. On the gross rental of each of the tenements the Municipal Committee determined the general tax on latrines and cesspools and totalling it together issued a notice of demand to the owner of the house. Now a tax which can be levied upon a house may be in respect of the entire house or, where it is occupied by several tenants as occupiers, on each of the portions in the occupation of a separate occupier. In other words, though the building may be one for purposes of assessment the houses may be more than one. This is what the Municipal Committee appears to have done. There is nothing illegal in the action of the Municipal Committee and indeed if the assessment was wrong it could only be corrected years ago and time for that correction has now completely passed. That is how both the learned single Judge and the President, Board of Revenue, decided this matter. Even otherwise also the tax being collected on the basis of each of the kothas as a separate entity either the total amount of a tax could be demanded either from the owner or the separate assessment on each kotha from its occupier. The byelaws of the Municipal Committee permit the Municipal Committee to ask the owners to pay in lieu of the occupiers who are mere birds of passage.