SEALING OF PROPERTY FOR RECOVERY OF PROPERTY
TAX BY MUNICIPAL CORPORATION- WHETHER PROPER?
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 AhmedabadMunicipalCorporation, Tuesday, sealed as many as 599 properties as the owners have failed to pay up property taxes since many years.Inall,overthecourseoflast week,thetaxandrevenuedepartment sealed a total of 2,358 properties for defaulting on payment of taxes despite repeated notices.” ( https://www.vibesofindia.com/amc-seals-599-holdings-over-non-payment-of-prope rty-tax/
In light of various such properties being sealed, we seek to examine whether sealing of a property for recovery of property tax is proper by municipal corporation and in what manner such sealing could be effected.
• 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:-
o PropertyTaxes;
o ATaxonvehicles,BoatandAnimals;
o Octroi;
o Ataxondogs;
o TheatreTax;
o Tollonvehiclesand animals;
o AnyotherTaxes.
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:-
1. By presenting the bill;
2. By serving a written Notice of demand;
3. By restraint and Sale of defaulter’s movable property;
4. By attachment and sale of defaulter’s immovable property;
5. In the case of toll, by seizure and sale of goods and vehicles;
6. In the case of property tax, by the attachment of rent due in respect of property;
7. By a suit.
In our view, prima facie, 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. It will be interesting to see what the municipalcorporationarguesasandwhentheissuegoestocourt.