- Various recent news items recently indicated sealing of property by corporation owing to failure to pay property taxes by owners. One such news item read:-
- The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Tuesday, sealed as many as 599 properties as the owners have failed to pay up property taxes since many years.
- In all, over the course of last week, the tax and revenue department sealed a total of 2,358 properties for defaulting on payment of taxes despite repeated notices.
- The taxes to be imposed under The Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949(“The Act”) and the manner of recovering the municipal taxes are provided in Section 127 and 128 of the Act.
- Different Taxes that may be imposed by a Municipal Corporation in terms of provisions of s.127 of the Act are:-
- Property Taxes;
- A Tax on vehicles, Boat and Animals;
- Octroi
- A tax on dogs;
- Theatre Tax;
- Toll on vehicles and animals;
- Any other Taxes.
- S. 128 of the Act provides that A municipal tax(including a property tax) may be recovered by following the process in the manner prescribed by the rules:-
- By presenting the bill;
- By serving a written Notice of demand;
- By restraint and Sale of defaulter’s movable property;
- By attachment and sale of defaulter’s immovable property;
- In the case of toll, by seizure and sale of goods and vehicles;
- In the case of property tax, by the attachment of rent due in respect of property;
- By a suit.
- In our view, S.128 of the Act exhaustively provides for all different modes for recovery of a municipal tax in case of non-payment and sealing is not one of them.
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R&D Law Chambers
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604, Entice, Nr. Jayantilal Park Bus Stand,
Iskon-Ambli Road, Ahmedabad-380058
*Above information is neither intended to be nor should it be taken as any professional advice. Please contact a legal practitioner for any specific query.