Bombay High Court disposes of writ petitions against Panvel civic body

The residents’ forums moved the high court following the Panvel corporation’s move to levy retrospective property tax from 2016. Representation pic

In a major jolt to various residents' forums, who had moved the Bombay High Court challenging the Panvel Municipal Corporation's retrospective decision to levy property tax since 2016 and not adhering to Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949, the court disposed of some of petitions last week. The HC, however, has given the petitioners the liberty to convert their writ petitions into a public interest litigation (PIL).

Leena Garad, former corporator and one of the petitioners from Kharghar Forum, said, "After hearing the counsels, the court was pleased to observe that as each individual property owner has received property tax receipt in his individual capacity, representative litigation is not permissible as forums and federations do not have any locus/cause of action to file the writ petitions. If individuals are aggrieved, then they will have to file separate writ petitions for themselves. The court even directed Kharghar Forum to convert its writ petition into a PIL instead. The written order is yet to be uploaded."

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Leena Garad, former corporator and a petitioner

"We are in the process of filing both individual writs through our Kamothe Forum and as the chairperson of Kharghar Forum, I will personally be converting my present writ petition into a PIL, as directed by the court. Our main prayers are on the grounds that the Panvel Municipal Corporation has violated section 99 of Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949 wherein before imposing property tax, the same has to be tabled and approved by the standing committee, which never happened between 2017 until 2022, except 2019," Garad said.

She added, "Secondly, there has been violation of section 129 A of the Act which clearly states that when a gram panchayat is converted to a municipal corporation, the tax slab has to be uniform for both villages and the CIDCO nodes - wherein the property tax for the first year is levied as per the gram panchayat property tax rate and in the subsequent years the tax is increased yearly from 20 to 40, to 60 to 80 and 100 per cent from the fifth year onwards, which means the corporation could have imposed 100 per cent tax only from April 1, 2022. The civic body has deliberately overlooked this for CIDCO nodes and benefits were given only to the villages in its jurisdiction, which came under the newly formed corporation. My third prayer is on the misuse of section 150 A of the Municipal Corporation Act, wherein the corporation has levied retrospective property tax."

Ganesh Deshmukh, Panvel Municipal Corporation chief

Advocate Mandar Limaye, for Kharghar Forum, said, "The argument on behalf of Panvel Municipal Corporation was that the petitioners, being forums, were not affected parties and instead its members were. The court accepted the argument and ordered that the writ petition be converted into PIL and individual affected members can file the writ, if needed."

Mangal Kamble of Swach Kharghar Foundation said, "I am aware about the disposal of the matter raised by a few citizens associations by the high court. I have been vocal on the property tax issue and believe that every resident, who owns a property, is bound to pay the property tax, and there are no two ways about it. I would still appeal to people, who have been delaying the payment, to use their wisdom and clear the property tax to avoid penalty, than trusting people with political and other vested interests."

Ganesh Deshmukh, commissioner of Panvel Municipal Corporation, said, "We have time and again requested the public to pay their property tax to avoid any penalty that is calculated on a monthly basis on defaulted payment. In the next few days, the corporation will be sending reminders to the public once again."

2016
Year from when the retrospective property tax is to be levied