MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE Vs. NARSINGH LAL SINGLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present appeal has been preferred by the Municipal Committee, Barnala, against the orders of the trial Court as also the first Appellate Court whereby the suit filed by the plaintiff -respondent had been decreed and the order of assessment of house tax made by the appellant with respect to the property has been quashed. It is the admitted case of the parties that the property in Barnala town is covered by the provisions of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act'). It is also the conceded case that though the contractual rent had been fixed at Rs. 5,000/ - per annum yet the fair rent as prescribed by the Act had not been assessed.

(2.) ON these admitted facts, the courts below have found relying on various judgment of this court that a building covered by the Act had to be assessed to house tax as per the provisions of the Act pertaining to the assessment of the fair rent, and for this purpose the contractual rent has not to be taken into account. Reliance has been placed by the respondent on a decision of the Supreme Court in Devan Daulat Rai Kapoor etc. etc. v. New Delhi Municipal Committee and Anr. etc. etc. : A.I.R. 1980 S.C. 541 wherein it has been observed that where a building is governed by the provision of Rent Control Legislation the landlord cannot reasonably be expected to receive anything more than the standard rent from a hypothetical tenant and the annual value of the building cannot therefore exceed the standard rent and even in case of a building in respect of, which no standard rent has been fixed within the prescribed period of limitation and the tenant is thereby precluded from making an application for fixation of standard rent, the annual value must be limited to the measure of standard rent determinable under the Rent Act and cannot be determined on the basis of the higher rent actually received by the landlord from the tenant. It is, therefore, apparent that the appellant -Municipal Committee was not competent to assess the house tax on the basis of the contractual rent between the landlord and his tenant. In view of the above, I find no merit in the appeal and the same is dismissed.