- (1.) Appellant in Civil Appeal No. 4104 of 1998 is aggrieved by judgment dated July 7, 1997 of the Division Bench of Delhi High Court dismissing his writ petition wherein he had sought setting aside the order of assessment dated March 12, 1991 assessing the rateable value of his property for the purpose of property tax under Section 116 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 (for short the 'act'). The property of the appellant comprised of his house constructed on a plot of land bearing No. II- 1787 Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi, measuring 311 sq. yards. The writ petition was dismissed by the High Court relying on its earlier judgment in the case of Ravish Chander Rastogi v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi decided by the same Division Bench on May 29, 1997. Civil Appeal No. 4105 of 1998 is against that judgment of the High Court. It would, therefore, be appropriate to refer to the facts in the case of Ravish Chander Rastogi.
(2.) The appellant Ravish Chander Rastogi is the owner of the property bearing No. 55, Anandlok, New Delhi. He was served with a notice dated March 20, 1996 under Section 126 of the Act proposing to enhance rateable value for the purpose of property tax from existing Rs. 1,280. 00 to Rs. 1,79,000. 00 with effect from April 1, 1985. The reason for increase in the proposed rateable value was that the appellant had made new construction. Appellant filed his objections to the proposed rateable value. The assessing officer proceeded to assess the rateable value on the basis that the property was in the self-occupation of the appellant and rateable value, therefore, had to be determined under Section 6 (1) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (for short the 'rent Act'). For this two components are necessary: (1) market value of the land on the date of commencement of construction and (2) reasonable cost of construction. The assessing officer arrived at the market value of the plot, which measured 812 sq. yards at Rs. 6,00,000. 00 as on the date when building plans were sanctioned. He then estimated the reasonable cost of construction at Rs. 12,98,000. 00. Keeping in view the provisions of the Rent Act he arrived at the aggregate of market value of the land and the cost of construction at Rs. 18,98,000. 00 Standard rent of the property at the rate of 8.25% was thus Rs. 1,56,585. 00. After giving 10% rebate for repairs, rateable value was arrived at Rs. 1,40,930. 00. The effective date of fixation of rateable value was taken as March 17, 1986 when the appellant applied for the occupancy certificate of the premises. Objections of the appellant that the principles laid by this Court in Dr. Balbir Singh and Others v. Municipal Corporation, Delhi and Others [1985 (2) SCR 439] be taken into consideration while fixing the rateable value, were not considered relevant as it was observed that the observations of this Court were made in the context of the applicability of Section 9 (4) of the Rent Act and that provisions of Section 9 (4) would be applicable only where it was not possible to determine the standard rent of the premises on the principles set forth in Section 6 of the Rent Act. From the assessment order the appellant filed an appeal before the District Judge under Section 169 of the Act, which came for decision before Mr. P. K. Dham, Additional District Judge, Delhi. Learned Additional District Judge noticed three houses in the neighbourhood of the appellant where rateable value of the property was fixed at Rs. 12,660. 00 (house No. 52) , Rs. 21,660. 00 (house No. 15) and Rs. 40,800. 00 (house No. 6). According to learned Additional District Judge principles laid by this Court in Dr. Balbir Singh's case were fully applicable, which were ignored by the assessing officer. He, therefore, set aside the assessment order and remanded the matter back to the assessing authority to decide the case afresh in accordance with law after giving opportunity to the appellant to be heard. Now, it was the respondent Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which felt aggrieved and sought to challenge the order of the learned Additional District judge by filing a writ petition in the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. Submission of the appellant that principles laid by this Court in Dr. Balbir Singh's case were applicable did not find favour with the High Court when it observed: "It appears that in Dr. Balbir Singh's case there are certain observations made which appear to lend support to the contention raised on behalf of the assessee that the figure of standard rent having been arrived at has to be further scaled down. These observations made in Dr. Balbir Singh's case display only an anxiety on the part of their Lordships to see that as far as practicable the properties situated in one locality are assessed by uniform standard so as to avoid the criticism of invidious discrimination. The observations have to be read in the light of the statutory provisions. The judgment in Dr. Balbir Singh's case cannot be read as laying down something which is not contemplated by the law itself, when the field is entirely covered by the statutory law. "the argument of the appellant was that after having arrived at the figure of standard rent the assessing authority should have treated that to be the upper limit and thereafter he should have proceeded to apply the principle of parity. This principle meant that the assessing authority must proceed to find out the standard rent of similarly situated properties in the locality whose construction might be older than that of the property of the appellant and after having done this exercise the assessing authority should reduce the standard rent of the premises in question so as to bring it at par with the standard rent of other older premises in the locality. It would be only on that basis there would be equality and parity in the assessment of rateable value of the property tax as amongst all the properties situated in one locality which would be more or less same. This submission was also negatived by the High Court by making the following observations: "For several reasons, the submission of the learned counsel for the assessee does not appeal to us. The learned counsel for the MCD has rightly pointed out that firstly there is no warrant in law to support the submission of the learned counsel for the assessee. Secondly, if the proposition canvassed by the asses-see was to be accepted, it would be expecting the assessing authority to perform an exercise nearing impossibility. Rarely it would be possible to expect two premises having similar nature of construction and accommodation. The assessing authority is not possessed of any machinery under the law which would enable it to collect and record such evidence. There is no adversary system of deciding assessment matters before the assessing authority. There is no independent agency available to assessing authority which would go out searching and collecting evidence and then bring on the record of the assessing authority such material as would enable the principle of parity canvassed by the learned counsel for the assessee being applied. If the assessing authority was itself to undertake that exercise, it would be busy collecting evidence in the field left with hardly any time to sit in the office and finalise the assessments. The time and energy which the assessing authority would be required to spend in finalising individual assessments of the properties would be so much that the imposition of such a tax would be counter productive and may persuade the Municipal Corporation to drop the tax itself instead of undertaking extremely onerous task of assessing and realizing the tax. There is yet another flaw inherent. For the purpose of assessing one house property the assessing authority must conduct survey of the entire locality to find out the property least valued and then scale down the value of property under assessment. It was also submitted by the learned counsel for the MCD that by a series of decisions of the Supreme Court it is well settled that for the purpose of finding out reasonable rent, the assessing authority has to keep in view the principles of standard rent as deducible from the provisions of Rent Control Law which permits cost of construction being adopted as basis for calculating the rateable value in the case of self-occupied properties. It is fair and reasonable if the assessing authority works out the cost of land by reference to the date of commencement of construction and the reasonable amount spent in construction. That exercise is by itself time consuming exercise, yet once it is done the facts found would be relatable to the facts as actually exist. Where is then the occasion for going a step ahead and then finding out the value of land and cost of construction of comparable properties of the locality so as to scale down the rateable value and standard rent determined of the properties under assessment The Delhi Rent Control Act nowhere contemplates such an exercise being undertaken for the purpose of finding out standard rent so as to ascertain the reasonable letting value. "high Court allowed the writ petition, set aside the order of learned Additional District Judge and restored that of the assessing authority.
(3.) On grant of leave to appeal by the appellant these matters have come before us.;