ABDULLABHAI LALJI Vs. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference under Section 8 of the Aden Act II of 1864 for the decision by this Court of the following questions: 1. Whether the lower Court (i.e., of the Assistant Resident) did not act irregularly and illegally in declining to hear the plaintiffs case as a whole and raising a certain preliminary issue and deciding the same without taking any evidence as to the merits of the case.

(2.) Whether the decision of the lower Court on the said issue was not erroneous. And

(3.) Whether the lower Court was not wrong in dismissing the plaintiffs suit. 2. The nature of the plaintiffs suit and the circumstances under which the preliminary issue, the subject of the reference, was raised are stated in the judgment of the Assistant Resident as follows: The plaintiffs, in 1909, obtained a lease from Government of certain lands in the Sheikh Othman District of Aden for the purpose of constructing salt works thereon and the manufacture of salt therein. The plaintiffs pay a rent of Rs. 7,000 per annum for this land, plus a royalty of eight annas per ton on all salt exported by them. The defendants, the Executive Committee of the Aden Settlement, constitute the Municipal authority of the Aden Settlement, within the area of which is comprised the land upon which the plaintiffs salt works are situated. "As stated in the plaint, the Political Resident at Aden, in exercise of powers conferred upon him by the Aden Settlement Regulation (No. VII of 1900), had published two Notifications, dated 26th March 1909, levying certain taxes and laying down rules for the assessment and collection thereof. Included among the taxes so levied were a House and Property Tax and a General Sanitary Tax, both taxes to be assessed on the rateable value of the property taxed. "By these Notifications, the defendants were charged with the duty of assessing and collecting the said taxes in accordance with the rules therein embodied. "The defendants, acting on the powers thus conferred on them, fixed the rateable value of the aforesaid leasehold lands of the plaintiffs at Its. 7,000, that being the amount payable by the plaintiffs as annual rent for the lands. This was done in the year 1909, when the salt works had only just begun to be constructed and no salt had as yet been produced. In the year 1911, when production had commenced, the defendants adopted a new mode of assessment, and fixed the rateable value of the property at one-half the value of the salt exported by plaintiffs during the year, less ten per cent. The plaintiffs state that they protested against this new mode of assessment, but their protest was overruled by defendants, who continued in the following years to assess the taxes on the new basis in spite of protests from plaintiffs on each occasion. The plaintiffs urge that this new method of assessment is wrong in principle and oppressive, as well as being illegal and unauthorised, and they ask for a declaration of the Court to that effect. They ask further for a declaration that the correct method of assessing the taxes is to make the fixed rental Rs. 7,000 or at most such sum plus the royalty payable by plaintiffs on salt exported as the rateable value of the lands and to assess the taxes on such rateable value. They ask finally for a decree for the refund of the excess sums over the amount legally payable recovered by defendants during the three years 1911-1914. "Now the first point to be noted is that in their plaint the plaintiffs make no mention whatever of the fact that in three successive years they made three appeals to the Court of the Resident, in the manner provided in the rules, against the defendants decisions of which they complain, and that all these appeals were rejected by the Court. This is a fact to which great importance is, not unnaturally, attached by the defendants, who maintain that these decisions in appeal are final and that this Court cannot interfere. In the circumstances it has been necessary to frame a preliminary issue: Whether this Court has jurisdiction to interfere with the assessment fixed by the defendants, and confirmed by the Appellate Authority? If the decision on this issue be found in the negative, this Court can have no option but to dismiss the suit. 3. The plaintiffs inter alia contended that the rules providing for appeals against over-assessment were not passed by the Legislative Council and, therefore, have not for the purposes of the present case the force of law.