RAM PARTAP Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution by Ram Partap petitioner. The facts and circumstances cut of which the petition has arisen are as below.

(2.) THE petitioner is mortgagee of house No. 1102/2 at Patiala. He avers that his share in the mortgage is half and the other half is with his nephew. The rent settled in the mortgage deed is Rs. 120/- per annum. In the days of the former Pepsu State the Patiala Municipality determined the annual rental value of the house at Rs. 324a. At that time Patiala was the capital of that State. Plow the assessing authority under the Punjab Urban Immovable Property Tax Act, 1940 (Punjab Act Ho. 17 of 1940), has determined Rs. 486/- per annum as the annual value of the house for purposes of that Act.

(3.) IT appears that on the date of hearing of the case before the assessing authority the petitioner was present, but he avers in paragraph (v) of the petition that the assessing authority told him that his objections will receive due consideration but that no judgment or assessment order was made or announced on that date. Some three months after demand notice and challan form were thrown in his premises one evening at about dusk time to which he gave reply, the copy of which is Annexure 'c'. It appears from this that the date of the demand notice and Challan form were shown to him by the Inspector. The main stand taken by the petitioner in this letter was that the tax should be payable by two persons, i. e. , by himself and his nephew, and in that way his half share came to Rs. 243/-, which amount is exempt from payment of the tax, and that the demand notice said that the tax was due for the assessment year 1957-58 but that was against the Act and the rules thereunder because the Act was in force in the Pepsu area with effect from 1-6-1957. On 18-4-1958 the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, respondent 2, replied to this letter pointing out that a revision petition be made with proper court-fees same and that it should be accompanied by copy of relevant extracts pertaining to the petitioner's property from register 'a' maintained by the assessing authority, Patiala. He also pointed out that a receipt showing payment of the tax assessed should also be attached. The petitioner says that he pointed out that no application of an assessee should be decided in his absence and that this was not attended to. This he did in his letter of 8-5-1958, copy Annexure 'e''. To this respondent 2 replied by a letter, copy Annexure 'f', saying that no action could be taken on his application and that he should seek his remedy according to law. The petitioner further avers that Punjab Act No. 17 of 1940 became operative in the Patiala rating area from 1-6-1957 and so tax was only payable by him for the remaining 6 months of the year and not for the entire period of financial year 1957-58. Then he says that after the (apse of 15 months he was summoned to appear before the Excise and Taxation Officer, respondent 3, when he was placed under arrest and obtained release by payment of the tax. He claims that he was not a defaulter in any sense. He takes the stand that the levy and recovery of property tax for the whole assessment year 1957-58 was illegal, that, in any case, it was incumbent upon the departmental officers to issue a notice in form 'o' under Section 14 of the Act, which was not done and the tax was recovered by a coercive process and that three families have been residing in the house. After he had paid tax under the circumstances stated he filed a revision petition to respondent 2 on 25-11-1959 which was dismissed of time-barred by an order, copy of which is Annexure 'j'. This order he challenges on the grounds that although the revision petition had been filed two years after the assessment, the standing practice of two years' limit was not known to people in Pepsu area and that respondent 2 was biased to cause of the petitioner's correspondence with him previously. He claims that his application, copy Annexure 'c', was replied to by respondent 2 on 18-4-1958 as is apparent from. Annexure 'd' and so time for filing revision petition should have been reckoned from that date, in which case he filed the revision petition within two years. As against the levy of the property tax, he lakes the grounds (a) that it should be levied on buildings and lands from which the owners derive gains and profits only, (b) that it is the basic law of taxation that property or a thing or money once assessed, should not be reassessed, (c) that the Punjab and Pepsu States merged on 1-11-1956 and the application of Punjab Act No. 17 of 1940 to the Patiala rating area is derogatory to the existing law of the land as also of the provisions of the Constitution, (d) that the Taxation Inquiry Commission has ruled that Property tax, where house tax has already been levied, is illegal, unconstitutional and void, and (e) that conferment of Judicial powers on the Excise and Taxation Officers under the antique Land Revenue Act, 1887, is repugnant to the provisions of the Constitution,