DEWAN BAHADUR G KRISHNAMACHARIAR Vs. MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, REPRESENTED BY ITS PRESENT CHAIRMAN, KSINGAM AIYANGAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITION by the plaintiff in S.C.S. No. 5450 of 1922 on the file of the Court of Small Causes, Trichinopoly, to revise the decree, dated 16 April, 1923.

(2.) THE suit was to recover back professional tax collected from the plaintiff. THE plaintiff is a resident of Hyderabad and has a house within the municipal limits of Srirangam where he comes and spends a portion of his vacation. He was called upon to pay professional tax for carrying on money-lending business at Srirangam and paid a sum of Rs. 50 under protest. It was urged before me that as he did not reside within the municipal limits of Srirangam for 60 days in the halfyear for which the tax was collected, he was not liable to be assessed. It was conceded that during the half-year for which the tax was levied the plaintiff did come and reside at his house at Srirangam for some days. Such being the case he was a person liable to be assessed, in case he came under Section 95 of the District Municipalities Act. THE term "residence " is defined in Section 3, Clause 25 of the Act, and the plaintiff must therefore be deemed to reside within the limits of the Srirangam Municipality. Now assuming for a moment that he ought to have resided for 60 days in the half-year for which he was assessed; Section 354(2) of the Act read with Clause 28 of Schedule IV, bars the suit. THE case appears to me to be on all fours with the case of Municipal Council of Nellore V/s. Rangayya (1895) I.L.R. 19 Mad 10 which was followed in Municipal Chairman, Virudupatti v. Saravana Pillai (1919) 10 L.W. 592. THEre a house which was completed only on 15 August, 1893, was assessed on 11 September, 1893, and tax collected for the half-year ending 30 September, 1893. It was held that although the building was not in a habitable state for 60 days in the half-year, it should not be said that there was any illegal levy, and that the remedy lay only by way of appeal to the Municipal Council. I dismiss the petition with costs.