J C MUKERJEA Vs. KARNANI INDUSTRIAL BANK LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the decision of my learned brother Lort-Williams, J., who has made absolute a Rule issued under Section 45, Specific Relief Act. The Rule is in the nature of a mandamus to hear and determine certain matters according to law, and is directed against Mr. J.C. Mukerjea who holds the office of the Chief Executive Officer of the Calcutta Corporation.

(2.) It appears that the applicant bank are the proprietors of certain premises-in Park Street. Those premises included at one time certain shops and certain buildings called Palais-de- Danse Park Hotel, and other hereditaments. The premises were assessed at a certain figure under the machinery provided by Clause (1), Section 131, Calcutta Municipal Act of 1923. That clause provides for a sexennial assessment of all the properties in Calcutta. On 5 January 1928, owing to the demolition of certain parts of the property, the valuation was reduced from Rs. 30,618 to the figure of 23,531, and on 23 June 1928 the applicants took objection to this valuation on the ground that the reduction was insufficient and inadequate. Further demolition appears to have taken place thereafter, and, on 2 July, 1928, the valuation was further reduced from Rs. 23,531 to Rs. 17,140. To this the applicants lodged an objection on 13 July complaining again of the inadequacy of the reduction and maintaining that it should have been reduced to the figure 7,694.

(3.) Now the question which has arisen with reference to this matter is as to the statutory obligation of the Chief Executive Officer in the matter of hearing and deciding upon the applicants objection. The Chief Executive Officer appears to have dealt with this case in accordance with the long-standing practice both under the Calcutta Municipal Act of 1923 and under the preceding Act of 1899 and the view which he takes, and which he presents to us, is that when, owing to demolition the sexennial assessment has to be reduced, by virtue of Clause (e), Sub-section (2), Section 131, the owner or occupier, while he is given the right to claim a revaluation in such a case, is not by the statute given any right of appeal upon the question of the correctness of the revaluation, at all events in a case such as the present where the valuation has been reduced and not increased. The question so raised has to be determined upon a consideration of the language employed in the various sections of Chap. 10 of the Act of 1923. The sections to which I am about to refer appear to be a revised edition of sections substantially the same which appeared in the Act of 1899 as Section 152 and the following sections, and the difficulty which we have to resolve in the present ease is just as great in the Act of 1899 as it is in the Act of 1923. We have to take the language of the Statute of 1923 by itself and to construe it if we can.