Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA
DATE OF JUDGMENT09/08/1977
BENCH:
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V.
BENCH:
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V.
KAILASAM, P.S.
CITATION:
1977 AIR 2134 1978 SCR (1) 279
1977 SCC (4) 84
ACT:
Punjab Municipal Act, 1911-Ss. 66, 67 and 68A scope of-
Certain property escaped assessment for five years-Power of
Municipal Committee to revise asseisment-If exists--’At any
time’ meaning of.
HEADNOTE:
Section 66 of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 (which is the
Act in force in the New Delhi Municipal Area) prescribing
the procedure for revision of the valuation and assessment
of property provides that "subject to such amendments as may
thereafter be duly made the tax so assessed shall be deemed
to be the tax for the year commencing on the first day of
January or first day of April next ensuing as the Committee
may determine." Section 67(1) provides that the Committee
may ’at any time’ amend the list by altering the assessment
on any property which has been erroneously valued or
assessed through fraud. accident or mistake whether on the
part of the Committee or of the assessee, after following
the procedure prescribed therein. Section 68A which deals
with power to amend an assessment list in certain cases
provides that where the prescribed authority is satisfied
that any property has been erroneously valued or assessed
through fraud, accident or mistake, whether on the part of
the committee or of the assessee, it may pass an order
amending the assessment already made and fixing the amount
of tax payable for that property and on the issue of such an
order the assessment list then in force shall be deemed to
have been amended accordingly with effect from first day of
January or first day, of April or first day of July or first
day of October next following the month in which the order
is passed.
In January, 1968 the appellant Municipal Committee issued a
notice to the respondent stating that it had decided to
amend the lists of assessment for five years (1963-64, 1964-
65, 1965-66, 1966-67, 1967-68) on the ground that the rent
of a portion of the basement of the building had escaped
inclusion in the respective lists.
The respondent’s writ petition was allowed by the High Court
holding that the assessment lists together with the
amendments, if any, could only operate prospectively in and
for the financial year next following and not for any
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previous year.
Allowing the appeal,
HELD : The Full Bench of the High Court was wrong in its
conclusion that the expression ’at any time’ in s. 67 has
reference only to the point of time when the list could be
amended. [286H]
1(a) That the amended list operates prospectively is correct
because the amendment is made to the original list and that
list has prospective operation. Each assessment list is
effective for the ensuing year, so that the list settled
before 31st of March operates for the year commencing with
the ensuing 1st of April and ending with the 31st of March
following, But the list in force for such an ensuring year
can under s. 67 be amended at any time with the result that
when a list which was finalised say on March 25, 1970 is
amended in August 1973, the amendment becomes effective for
the year for which the list itself was effective, that is to
say, for the year April 1, 1970 to March 31, 1971. The
words "next ensuing" which occur in s. 66 cannot be
correlated to the date of the amendment so as to mean "the
year next ensuing after the year in which the amendment is
made". This reasoning overlooks the true purpose and
purport of the Committee’s power to amend a list at any time
and robs that power of its meaningful content. [286E-G]
(b)’The Committee’s power to amend an assessment-list is
not limited by the consideration that the list has already
become final by authentication. It
280
has the power to amend a list even after it is finalised and
has already come into force. That is the important effect
and implication of the expression ’at any time.’ [284A-B]
(c)It may be true to say that the power ought to be
exercised within a reasonable time since the use of
expression of a wide amplitude like ’at any time’ does not
exclude the concept of reasonableness. Subject to that
consideration, the power of amendment can be exercised even
after the expiry of the year for which the list is to remain
in force. [284D]
2(a) The reason why the Legislature, by s. 67, has conferred
on the Municipal Committee the power to amend an assessment
list at any time is that the omission, by reason of which a
property has escaped assessment, may be discovered a long
time after the list had ceased to be operative. The larger
interest of the general public requires in such cases that
the Municipal Committee must have the power to do what ought
to have been done but which, for some reason or the other,
had remained to be done. (284-G]
In the instant case, a part of the basement was alleged to
have escaped assessment and if that be true, the assessee
could not in face of s. 67, raise a contention that the
assessment lists of past years, though faulty, could not be
corrected.
(b)The expression ’at any time’ must be given its full
force and effect which requires the recognition of. the
Committee’s power to amend the assessment list even after
the expiry of the year following the one in which the list
was finalised by due authentication. [285B]
3.Sections 66 and 67 have to be read as two integral
parts of a scheme which the legislature has prescribed for
preparation, assessment and amendment of assessment lists.
The scheme contemplated by s. 66 is subject to an important
condition mentioned in the section itself, namely, that the
tax assessed under an authenticated list becomes the tax for
the particular period, "subject to such amendments as may
thereafter be duty made." The word "thereafter" means "after
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the list is finalised on the completion of revision of
valuation and assessment", and "duly made" evidently refers
to the exercise of the amending power under s. 67. Thus,
the two sections, read together, yield the result that tile
list ran be amended at any time after its finalisation,
subject to the prescription of reasonableness. [285D-E]
Therefore, if the Committee discovered, say in July 1970,
that a property had escaped assessment since April 1, 1967
it possesses, under s. 67, the power to make an appropriate
amendment. If everyone of the lists which was in force
during the relevant year erroneously omitted to include
therein a certain property, the amendment made in July 1970,
will cure each of the lists from the defect from which it
suffered. [285F]
4.A comparison of the provisions of s. 68A with those of s.
67 shows that the words of limitation contained in the
former section as regards the time from which an amendment
can come into force are conspicuously absent is. the latter.
Since the purpose of s. 67 ’is to bring to assessment
properties which have altogether escaped assessment the
legislature evidently thought that amendments made under it
should have a wider operation as contrasted with those made
under s. 68A. [286D]
Punjab National Bank v. New Delhi Municipal Committee,
[1973] 3, S.’ C.R. 189, 193 and Municipal Corporation of
City of Hubli v. Subha Rao Hanumanatha Rao Prayag and
Others. [1976] 3 S.C.R. 883 held inapplicable.
JUDGMENT:
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 289
of 1974.
From the Judgment and Order dated 27-3-73 of the Delhi High
Court in Civil Writ No. 445 of 1968 and
281
Civil Appeal No. 611/74
From the Judgment and Order dated 27-3-73 of the Delhi High
Court in Civil Writ No. 177 of 1968.
F.S. Nariman, Bikramjit Nayar, B. P. Maheshwari and
Suresh Sethi for the Appellant (In both the appeals).
K.L. Hathi, Ravindra Sethi and P. C. Kapoor for
Respondent (In CA No. 289/74).
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
CHANDRACHUD,J.-These appeals, by a certificate of fitness
granted by the Delhi High Court, arise out of a common
judgment dated March 27, 1973 given by the High Court in
writ petitions filed by the respondents against the
appellant, the New Delhi Municipal Committee. The facts of
the two writ petitions being similar, we will only set out
those of Civil Appeal No. 289 of 1974, which arises out of a
writ petition filed in the High Court by the Life Insurance
Corporation of India.
For convenience, we will refer to- the appellant as ’the
Municipal Committee’ and to the respondent as ’the L.I.C..
The L.I.C. is the owner of a building known as ’Jeevan
Vihar’, Parliament Street, New Delhi. The Municipal
Committee assessed the building to house-tax for the
years 1963-64, 1964-65, 1965-66, 1966-67and 1967-68 on the
basis of actual rent received by the L.I.C.The L.I.C.
paid the tax as assessed for these years but in February
1968 it received five notices from the Municipal
Committee stating, that in exercise of the powers conferred
by s. 67 of the Punjab Municipal Act, 3 of 1911, it had
decided by a resolution dated January 27, 1968 to amend the
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lists of assessment for the aforesaid five years by
including therein the rent of a portion of the basement of
the building which had escaped inclusion in the respective
lists.
In June 1968, the L.I.C. filed a writ petition in the Delhi
High Court praying that the aforesaid resolutions of the
Municipal Committee be quashed and that it be restrained
from realising the additional tax which it proposed to levy
under its resolution, on the ground that it had no
jurisdiction under s. 67 of the Act to amend the assessment
lists of previous years. In view of the importance of the
question, the writ petition was referred for decision to a
full bench of the High Court.
The High Court has held that the assessment lists settled
under s. 66 of the Act, together with the amendments if
any, can only operate prospectively in and for the financial
year next following and not for any previous year. In this
view, the High Court allowed the writ petition except in
regard to the amendment made in the list of 1967-68. The
other writ petition too was allowed except for the year
1966-67.
Chapter V of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911 deals with
’Taxation’. Section 61(1)(a) thereof authorises imposition
of a tax payable by the owners on buildings and lands.
Section 62 provides
7-768SCI/77
282
that the Municipal Committee may, at a special meeting, pass
a resolution proposing the imposition of any tax under s.
61. Sections 63, 64, 65,66 and 67 prescribe the procedure
for assessing immovable properties to property-tax. Section
63 provides that the Committee shall cause an assessment
list to be prepared of all buildings and lands on which any
tax is proposed to be imposed. By s. 64, on completion of
assessment list, the Committee. is required to give public
notice of the place where the list or a copy, thereof may be
inspected. Section 65 requires the Committee,, at the time
of publication of this list, to give a public notice as to
the time when it will proceed to revise the valuation and
assessment made in the list. For this purpose, the
Committee is required to invite objections to the valuation
and assessment within the time fixed in the notice.
The question for decision in these appeals depends primarily
on the construction of ss. 66 and 67 of the Act, which must
be reproduced fully. These sections read as follows :
"66(1) After the objections have been inquired
into and the persons making them have been
allowed an opportunity of being heard either
in person or by authorized agent, as they may
think fit, and the revision of the valuation
and assessment has been completed, the
amendments made in the list shall be
authenticated by the signatures of not less
than two members of the committee, who, shall
at the same time certify that no valid
objection has been made to the valuation an
d
assessment contained in the list, except in
the cases in which amendments have been
entered therein; and, subject to such
amendments as may thereafter be duly made, the
tax so assessed shall be deemed to be the tax
for the year commencing on the first day of
January or first day of April next ensuing as
the committee may determine, or in the case of
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a tax then imposed for the first time for the
period between the date on which the tax comes
into force and such first day of January or
April, as the case may be.
(2)The list when amended under this section
shall be deposited in the committee’s office
and shall there be open during office hours to
all owners or occupiers of property ’comprised
therein or the authorized agents of such
persons, and a public notice that it is so
open shall forthwith be published.
67.(1) The committee may at any time amend the
list inserting the name of any person whose
name ought to have been or ought to be
inserted or by inserting any property which
ought to have been or ought to be inserted, or
by altering the assessment on any property
which has been erroneously valued or assessed
through fraud, accident or mistake, whether on
the, part of the committee or of the assessee,
or in the case of a tax payable by the
occupier by a change in the tenancy, after
giving notice to any person affected by the
amendment, of a time, not less than one month
from the date of service, at which the
amendment is, to be made.
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(2)Any person interested in any such
amendment may tender his objection to the
committee in writing before the time fixed in
the notice, or orally or in writing at that
time, and shall be allowed an opportunity of
being heard in support of the same in person,
or by authorized agent, as he may think fit."
By section 68, the. Municipal Committee has the discretion
to prepare a new assessment list every year or to adopt the
valuation and assessment contained in the list for any year
as the valuation and assessment for the following year.
Section 68A which, like s. 67, deals with the power to amend
assessment lists reads thus :
"68A. Power to amend assessment list in
certain cases.(1) Notwithstanding anything
contained in this Chapter, where the
prescribed authority is satisfied that any
property has been erroneously valued or
assessed through fraud, accident or mistake,
whether on the part of the committee or of the
assessee, it may, after giving to the assessee
an opportunity of being heard and after making
such enquiry as it may deem fit, pass an order
amending the assessment already made and
fixing the amount of tax payable for that
property and on the issue of such an order the
assessment list then in force shall, subject
to the order, if any, passed in appeal, be
deemed to have been amended accordingly with
effect from first day of January, or first day
of April, or first day of July, or first day
of October next following the month in which
the order is passed.
(2)Any person aggrieved by an order of the
prescribed authority may, within a period of
thirty days of the date of communication to
him of the order, file an appeal to the State
Government which shall decide the appeal after
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giving to the appellant an opportunity of
being heard."
Section 68A, it must be stated, was introduced by Act 8 of
1974 and there was no corresponding provision in the Act at
the time ,When the lists in question were amended.
In order to determine the scope and extent of the Municipal
Committee’s power to amend an assessment list and the effect
of an amendment made in a list, regard must necessarily be
had to the language, of the statute under consideration and
its overall scheme governing the preparation and amendment
of assessment lists. Decisions on other Municipal Acts
containing similar provisions may with profit be perused but
they cannot be considered as I binding pronouncements on the
Act which we have to construe in these appeals.
In the first place, the Municipal Committee has the
undoubted power under s. 67 to amend an assessment list "at
any time." The width of this power may justifiably be
curtailed by reading the expression "at any time" to mean
"within a reasonable time" as was canvassed in Punjab
National Bank v. New Delhi Municipal Committee(1) but the
question of reasonableness does not arise in this case and
was not
(1) [1973]3 S.C.R. 189,193,
284
raised in the High Court. Tin point of importance is that
the Committee’s power to amend an assessment list is not
limited by the consideration that the list has already
become final by authentication. It has the power to amend a
list even after it is finalised and has already come into
force. That is the important effect and implication of the
expression "at any time", which cannot be overlooked.
Assessment lists relating to property tax are generally
finalised by authentication before the 31st of March and are
made operative from the ensuing 1st of April to the
following 31st of March. In exercise of the power conferred
by s. 67, the Committee can amend a list even after the 31st
of March, despite the fact that the list has been finalised
and has come into force. The argument that an assessment
list cannot be. amended under s. 67 after its finalisation
was rejected by this Court in the Punjab National Bank case
(supra).
If the Municipality is expressly given the power by s. 67 to
amend an assessment list "at any time" and if in pursuance
of that power a list can be amended after it has come into
force, it is difficult to appreciate how any extra-statutory
limitation can be placed upon that power. It may be assumed
that the power ought to be exercised within a reasonable
time since, the use of expressions of wide amplitude like "
at any time" does not exclude the concept of reasonableness.
But subject to that consideration, the power of amendment
can be exercised even after the expiry of the year for which
the list is to remain in force. In other words, it is not
necessary that the list which was finalised, say on the 31st
of March 1963 must, if at all, be amended before the 31st of
March 1964. The list can be amended any time later which
means that it can be amended even after the expiry of the
31st of March 1964.
Section 67 of the Act itself shows the object and purpose of
conferring on the Municipal Committee the, power to amend an
assessment list. If the name of a person whose name ought
to be inserted in thelist has been omitted or if a
property which ought to be included inthe list has been
omitted or if a property has been erroneously valued or
assessed through fraud, accident or mistake on the part of
either party, or if the tenancy has changed in those cases
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in which the tax is payable by the occupier, it becomes
manifestly necessary to make appropriate amendments in the
assessment list. The reason why the legislature, by s. 67,
has conferred on the Municipal Committee the power to amend
an assessment list at any time is that the omission, by
reason of which a property has escaped assessment, may be
discovered a long time after the list has ceased to
be operative. The larger interest of the general public
requires in such cases thatthe Municipal Committee which
is under a statutory obligation to provide civic amenities
to the people, must have the power to do what, ought to have
been done but which, for some reason or the other, had
remained to be done. In the instant case, a part of the
basement is alleged to have escaped assessment and if that
be true, we are unable to understand that the assessee, the
L.I.C. here, could in face of s. 67 raise a contention that
the assessment lists of
285
past years, thou faulty, cannot now be corrected. The
Municipal Committee has to find funds, within the limits of
its authority, for discharging its statutory obligations.
But the argument is that if, through mistake or oversight,
or even due to fraud, a property has escaped assessment, the
mistake cannot be corrected retrospectively and the fraud
has to be suffered except in regard to a correction limited
to the ensuing year. This is denying to the expression "at
any time" even its plain, grammatical meaning, quite apart
from ignoring the context in which it occurs and the
beneficent purpose of its incorporation. The expression
must, in our opinion, be given its full force and effect
which requires the recognition of the. Committee’s power to
amend an assessment list even after the expiry of the
following the one in which the list was finalised by due
authentication.
Sections 66 and 67 have to be read as two integral parts of
a scheme which the legislature has prescribed for
preparation, assessment and amendment of assessment lists.
After preparing under s. 63 an assessment list of all
buildings and lands on which a tax is proposed to be
imposed, the Committee has to invite, hear and enquire into
objections to the proposed assessment. The revision of
valuation and assessment is then to be completed under s. 66
by incorporating in the list such amendments as are
considered necessary after deciding upon objections. The
tax so assessed in the authenticated list becomes under s.
66(1) the tax for the year commencing on the first day of
January or first day of April next ensuing as the Committee
may determine. But the scheme contemplated by s. 66 is
subject to an important condition mentioned in the section
itself, namely, that the tax assessed under an authenticated
list becomes the tax for the particular period, "subject to
such amendments as may thereafter be duly made". The word
"thereafter" means "after the list is finalised on the
completion of revision of valuation and assessment" and
"duly made" evidently refers to the exercise of the amending
power under s. 67. Thus, the two sections read together
yield the result that the list can be amended at any time,
after its finalisation, subject of course to the
prescription of reasonableness.
What effect then does an amendment duly made under s. 67
have on the list of assessment ? If the Committee
discovers, say in July 1970, that a property has escaped
assessment since April 1, 1967 it possesses under s. 67 the
power to make an appropriate amendment. What is often
overlooked is that though the amendment may have been made
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in 1970, what the Committee amends is the lists which were
in force from April 1, 1967 to March 31, 1968, April 1, 1968
to March 31, 1969, April 1, 1969 to March 31, 1970, and
April 1, 1970 to March 31, 1971. If every one of these four
lists which were in force during the respective years
erroneously omitted to include therein a certain property,
the amendment made in July 1970 will cure each of the lists
from the defect from which it suffered. It is wrong to
think that an amendment made in July 1970 will operate only
on the list for the year then current or the year ensuing.
Such a view lacks the support of the text of the statute.
Section 68A, it is true, came into force in 1974 but by
providing a striking contrast with s. 67, it facilitates a
clearer understanding of
286
this latter section. Section 68A provides briefly that if
any property is erroneously valued or assessed through
fraud, accident or mistake, the prescribed authority may
amend the assessment already made and thereupon the amended
assessment list shall be deemed to have been amended with
effect from the first day of January, or April, or July, or
October nextfollowing the month in which the order
of amendment is passed. Section 68A does not deal with
cases in which a property has escapedassessment
altogether. It deals with that limited class of cases
in which a property has been included in the assessment list
but has been erroneously valued or assessed. In such cases
of erroneous valuation or assessment, the amendments made in
the assessment lists have no retrospective operation with
the result that valuation or assessment already made, though
erroneous, remains valid for the past years. Amendments
falling within s. 68A operate in the future and can be
effective only from the dates mentioned in the section and
not from any earlier point of time. A comparison of the
provisions of s. 68A with those of s. 67 shows that the
words of limitation contained in the former section as
regards the time from which an amendment can come into force
are conspicuously absent in the latter. Since the purpose
of s. 67 is to bring to assessment properties which have
altogether escaped assessment, the legislature evidently
thought that amendments made under it should have a wider
operation as contrasted with those made under s. 68A.
The Full Bench of the High Court, with respect, has missed
the real point in the case. It says that since by s. 66,
both the unmended and the amended lists operate with effect
from the, year commencing on the first day of January or
April ’,’next ensuing", "the list settled under section 66
together with the amendments, if any, is to operate
prospectively in and for the financial year next following
and not for any previous year." That the amended list
operates prospectively is correct because after all, the
amendment is made to the original list and that list has
prospective operation. As we have explained above, each
assessment list is effective for the ensuing year, so that
the list settled before 31st of March operates for the year
commencing with theensuing 1st of April and ending with the
31st of March following. But the list in force for such an
ensuing year can under s. 67 be amended at any
time with the, result that when a list which was finalised
say on March 25, 1970 is amended in August 1973, the
amendment becomes effective for the year for which the list
itselfwas effective, that is to say, for the year April
1, 1970 to March 31.1971. The words ’next ensuring"
which occur in s. 66 cannot asthe High Court
thinks, be correlated to the date of, the amendmentso as
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to mean "the year next ensuing after the year in which the
amendment is made." This reasoning overlooks the true
purpose and purport of the Committee’s power to amend a list
at any time and robs that power of its meaningful content.
We are clear that the Full Bench is wrong in its conclusion
that the "expression ’at any time’ in s. 67...... has
reference only to the point of time when the list can be
amended."
We may in passing observe, though that aspect of the matter
ceases to have importance in the view we are disposed to
take, that the
287
High Court further fell into an error in applying the, ratio
of its judgment to the facts before it. It held that an
amendment can operate only on the year ensuing the one in
which it is made, but in working out this principle, it
unwittingly gave some retrospective effect to the impugned
amendments. It has declared that the amendment made in
January 1967 will be effective for the year 1966-67 and that
made in February 1968 will be effective for the year 1967-
68. Consistently with its reasoning, it should have held
that the two amendments would be effective for the years
1967-68 and 1968-69 respectively, each year commencing on
April 1 and ending with March 31. But that, as we said, is
not relevant.
The decision of this Court in Punjab National Bank (supra)
on which counsel for the L.I.C. relies does not support the
view contended for by him. In that case a building
belonging to the Punjab National Bank was not entered in the
assessment list which was to be operative for the period
April 1, 1958 to March 31, 1959. That list was amended on
December 21, 1959. The only point that arose for
consideration in the appeal, as is expressly mentioned by
Mathew, J., in his judgment, was whether the Municipal
Committee was entitled to include the building in the
assessment list which was operative from April 1, 1959 to
March 31, 1960 by amending it in December 1959. Repelling
the Bank’s contention that the list once finalised could not
be amended thereafter, the Court held that the amendment was
effective for the year during which the original list was
operative.
Finally, we are unable to accept the contention of the
learned counsel for the L.I.C. that the question which
arises for our consideration in these appeals is concluded
by a decision of this Court in Municipal Corporation of City
of Hubli v. Subha Rao Hanumantharao Prayag and Others.(1)
That is a decision on the Bombay Municipal Boroughs Act 18-
of 1925, and as the judgment of Bhagwati, J., in that very
case says, in interpreting a particular provision of a
statute the court must consider other parts of that statute
and read the statute as a whole. We have discussed the
entire scheme of the Punjab Municipal Act and have pointed
out how on a consideration of its various provisions it is
not possible to sustain the view taken by the High Court.
In Municipal Corporation of City of Hubli,(1) on which the
respondent strongly relies, the Corporation followed the due
procedure for the assessment year 1951-52 except that the
list of assessment containing the revised assessment was
authenticated on July 24, 1952 which was after the expiry of
the official year on March 31, 1952. The Corporation having
sought to levy property tax in accordance with the revised
rates for the year 1951-52, a suit was filed by the asses-
sees for a declaration that it was not entitled to recover
the tax at the revised rates for that year. The suit was
decreed by the Trial Court and the High Court. In appeal to
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this Court, two contentions were raised on behalf of the
Municipal Corporation, namely, that (1) the authentication
of the assessment list in order to be valid and effective
need not be made before the expiry of the official year to
which the
(1) [1976] 3 S.C.R. 883.
288
assessment list relates and (2) the suit was barred under s.
206A of the Act. We are not concerned with the second
question nor indeed with the first; but in order to
understand the respondent’s argument it is necessary to
state that this Court held on the first question that an
assessment list intended for a particular year must be
authenticated before the expiry of the previous official
year and that if it is not so authenticated it will not give
rise to any liability in the rate-payers to pay to the tax
for the year for which it is intended to be effective. This
pronouncement does not touch the points in controversy
before US.
Nor indeed can any assistance be derived from the
interpretation put on s. 82 (3) of the Bombay Act in that
case. contemplates, inter alia, amendments or alterations
(i) Those in regard to buildings constructed, altered,
constructed and (ii) those in regard to other cases. first
category, sec. 82(3) of the Bombay Municipal provides that
the amendment or alteration shall have That provision in two
cases : added to or oreAs regards the Boroughs Act the same
effect as if it had been made in the case of a building
constructed, altered, added to or reconstructed on the day
on which such construction, alteration, addition or
reconstruction was completed or on the day on which the new
construction, alteration, addition or reconstruction was
first occupied, whichever first occurs. As regards the
second category, namely the "other cases", the alteration
takes effect as if it had been made on the earliest day in
the current official year on which the circumstances
justifying the entry or alteration existed."The discussion
of this sub-section at page 890 of the report is in respect
of the second category of cases in regard to which there is
anexpress statutory provision that the amendment takes
effect only fromthe earliest day of the official year
current when the amendment ismade. We do not think that
there is any parallel between s. 82(3) of the Bombay Act and
S. 67 of the Punjab Municipal Act.
For these reasons we allow these appeals and set aside the
judgment of the High Court. The writ petitions filed by the
respondents will, as a consequence, stand dismissed, The
appellant will be entitled to its costs in one set which
shall be recovered from the Life insurance Corporation of
India.
P.B.R.
Appeal allowed.
289