- (1.) This appeal, by certificate arises out of one of the seventy Special Civil applications filed in the High Court of Gujarat by several rate payers challenging the validity of the assessment of property tax made by the respondent-Corporation under the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, LIX of 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Act.)
(2.) The appellant is the owner of an immovable property situate within the limits of the Corporation. Until March 31, 1961, two kinds of taxes were being levied on buildings and lands situate within the Corporation's municipal limits: (1) the general tax levied by the Corporation under the Act, and (2) the urban immovable property tax levied under the Bombay Finance Act, 1932 by the State Government, but collected on its behalf by the Corporation. At the request of the Corporation made in 1960, an arrangement was arrived at between the Government and the Corporation whereunder the Government agreed not to levy the U. I. P. tax provided the Corporation increased the rate at which it was till then levying the property tax. Accordingly, in January 1961 the Corporation passed a resolution increasing the rate of the property tax with effect from April 1, 1961 under the power reserved to it by S. 127 of the Act. In pursuance of the said resolution and in accordance with the raised percentage of the general tax the Corporation served on the appellant, as also on the other rate payers, bills and demand notices. In this appeal we are concerned with the bills and notices in respect of the assessment year 1962-63.
(3.) The appellant, as also certain other rate payers, challenged the said bills and notices in their said writ petitions mainly on the grounds (1) that the Corporation had no authority to amend the rates with the object of including the said U. I. P. tax in the general tax so for levied by the Government under a different statute and given up by it under the said arrangement; (2) that the said bills and notices were illegal as the assessment book kept by the Corporation was not in accordance with the rules made under the Act and was not authenticated by the Commissioner as required thereunder; (3) that Ss. 99, 123 and 129(c) of the Act were unconstitutional in that they suffered from the vice of excessive delegation in so far as they did not fix the maximum rate at which the Corporation could levy the property tax, and (4) that the said sections were also violative of Art. 19 (1) (f) and Art. 31 as the tax was confiscatory in character.;