Tejinder Kaur vs Municipal Committee Tarn Taran

M.R. Sharma, J.(Oral)

The appellant filed a suit for declaration that the imposition of housetax upon her was without jurisdiction, void and illegal, inter alia on the ground that no prior notice was served upon her and that at the material date the house in dispute fell outside the area of the jurisdiction of Municipal Committee, Tarn Taran. She has been nonsuited by both the learned Courts below on the ground that the Civil Court has no jurisdiction to entertain a suit of this type. She has come up in second appeal before this Court.

When an order is passed by a statutory authority, there is a presumption that it has been properly passed in accordance with the provisions of the statute, under which the authority concerned is exercising jurisdiction. If anybody challenges such an order, he is under a legal obligation to prove that the authority either acted outside the provisions of the statute or it passed an order without affording the party, concerned a reasonable opportunity of being heard. It cannot be disputed that the jurisdiction of a Municipal Committee to impose housetax extends only to the property which lies within its area. In the circumstances, if a party is able to prove that his or her house stood outside the municipal limits at the material time, the action of the authorities would be regarded as without jurisdiction. In such an event it is not only within the jurisdiction of the Civil Courts, but also their duty to enquire into the matter whether the plea raised by a citizen about the jurisdiction of the authorities, purporting to act under a statute, is well founded or not. I am clearly of the view that the learned courts below fell in an error to hold that the plea regarding the location of the property which cuts at the very root of the jurisdiction of the authorities to impose house tax was not entertainable by them.

The question whether an order passed without notice can be treated as an order without jurisdiction or not, has been settled by a Division Bench of Lahore High Court in Abdul Ghani v. AnjumaniImdad Qarza Bahami, A.I.R. 1942 Lahore 237. Therein, a Liquidator acting under section 42 of the Cooperative Societies Act had passed an order without hearing the party concerned. The Division Bench held that such an order was without jurisdiction and open to challenge in a Civil Court.

For the reasons aforementioned, I allow this appeal, set aside the judgments and decree passed by the learned courts below and remand the case to the learned trial Court with the following direction :

The learned trial Court shall frame an issue on the point whether the property in dispute was within the municipal limits at the material time or not. It shall also frame an issue whether the assessment framed was without notice to the appellant or not. The burden of both the issues shall be placed on the appellant.

The parties through their learned counsel are directed to appear before the learned trial Court on July 20, 1983.