AHMEDABAD MUNICIPALITY Vs. KALYANBHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are three revision applications filed against the decisions of the Small Cause Court Judge, Ahmedabad, in three suits, Nos. 4006, 4005 and 4034 of 1941, The plaintiff in suits Nos. 4006 and 4005 was the same person, Kalyanbhai Haribhai, and the plaintiff in suit No. 4036 was his brother, Nanubhai Haribhai, AH the three suits were filed against the Ahmedabad Municipality for refund of certain amounts recovered by it from the plaintiffs as drainage tax for the years 1939-40 and 1940-41. The learned Judge passed decrees in favour of the plaintiffs in all the three suits, and against those decrees the Ahmedabad Municipality and the Administrator of the Municipality have applied in revision. The points involved in all the three suits were the same, and the judgment given in suit No. 4006 which is the subject of Revision Application No. 370 governs all the three suits.

(2.) The plaintiffs jn the three suits were the owners of buildings within the municipal limits of Ahmedabad which consisted of several tenements. Each tenement was given a separate census number. Within the compounds of each of the three buildings, there is a general provision made for1 the disposal of the waste water |of each of the tenements, and there is also a water closet or urinal in each of the compounds. But each separate tenement is not actually connected with the municipal drainage system; nor is there a separate water closet or urinal attached to each tenement.

(3.) The separate tenements are used for shops, godowns and offices, but not for residential purposes. The Municipality made a claim on the owners of each of the three buildings for drainage tax, calculating it on the separate letting value of each of the tenements. The contention |of the plaintiffs in each case was that the Municipality was entitled to levy the tax on the total rental value of the buildings as a whole, but not separately on the letting value of each tenement in the building. As under Rule 353 the drainage tax on buildings and lands is leviable at the rate of five and a half per cent, on the net annual letting value up to the valuation of Rs. 100 or part thereof, and at five per cent, on the excess over Rs. 100, the Municipality is able to recover a larger amount of tax if it levies it on each of the tenements separately than it would be able to do if it imposed it on the letting value of the building as a whole.