CONSUMER COURTS

Forum fines MC Rs 5,000 Had charged interest on house tax

Chandigarh, January 23
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (CMC) for charging penal interest on house tax from a sector 18 resident.

The district forum, comprising president PD Goel and members Rajinder Singh Gill and Madanjit Kaur Sahota, has also directed the opposite parties to refund Rs 6,656 besides Rs 2,000 as costs of litigation to the complainants.

The complainants, Shwinder Kaur and her son Sanjit Singh, had submitted that the opposite parties served a notice on them demanding property tax for 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09, and consequently they deposited the property tax within the stipulated period. They alleged the opposite parties forced them to pay the property tax for 2004 to 2006 totalling Rs 20,196 with penal interest, which they had paid on May 28, 2010, under protest that the charging of penal interest was unjustified and illegal. Despite several reminders and notices the opposite parties failed to refund the excess amount.

The counsel for the Assistant Collector (Tax), Municipal Corporation (opposite party no.1) and the CMC, through its Executive Officer (opposite party no. 2) pleaded that the opposite parties had issued a consolidated-property-tax-demand notice for Rs 13,540 on February 21, 2006 and the same was delivered at SCO No. 95, Sector 40-C, Chandigarh through a messenger. It had been pleaded that in case the complainants failed to deposit the property tax within one month of the issuing of the notice, they were liable to pay interest at the rate of 18 per cent from the date of the issuing of the notice. The opposite parties had also made the plea that the complaint was not maintainable as per Clause 24 (i) of Property Tax Bye-Laws, 2003.

Goel said the opposite parties had raised the specific plea that the notice regarding the consolidated property tax was delivered through the messenger. But, they have failed to prove that the said notice reached the complainants, as they have neither produced any acknowledgement duly signed by them nor the affidavit of the messenger, who delivered the said notice to the complainants. Thus the opposite parties are not entitled to charge the interest, he added.