Ritika
- More than 14,000 demands were canceled
- There were receipts of more than 28 crores
Nagpur. A petition was filed in the year 2001 regarding the ongoing functioning of the Property Tax Department of the Municipal Corporation keeping in mind the random demands being sent to the property holders and the rules. According to the orders given on this, a memorandum of 143 pages was handed over to the municipal commissioner. But no decision has been taken on this and a public interest litigation has been filed again in the High Court on behalf of Shankar Gulani, secretary of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation House Tax Grievance Redressal Society, regarding the continuing irregularities in the tax department. During the hearing on the petition, a request was made on behalf of the Municipal Corporation to give time to file the affidavit. After the hearing, the court adjourned the hearing by giving 3 weeks time to the Municipal Corporation. On behalf of Municipal Corporation Jaimini Kasat advocated.
books not being maintained
It was told in the petition on behalf of the petitioner that the demand being issued on property tax and the books are not being maintained properly. An example of this came to light when the department canceled more than 14,000 receipts worth Rs 28.56 crore till the year 2016. It is surprising that due to lack of information about many accounts of property tax collected by Municipal Corporation, Rs. 1.17 crore. For many years, the suspension is lying in the account, which has not even been determined. The situation is that due to the haphazard functioning of the Municipal Corporation, many times two demands are being issued to the property holders. While many earlier records of the property holders have also been destroyed.
One Asset, Double Demand
Giving examples from the side of the petitioner, it was told in the petition that 2 demands were issued by the department to Seema Totlani, the property holder of house number 4146/C/11 of ward number-57 (ward according to the tax department).
12,101 for the year 2009 to 2016 in the first demand given on October 25, 2016. Shown as outstanding. While the demand given to the same property holder on July 2, 2015, Rs. 10,884. shown as outstanding.
-The petitioner demanded to publish property tax information from time to time through Municipal Corporation’s website and newspapers under Section 4 (2) of the RTI Act.
– A request was also made to examine the functioning of Municipal Corporation and order the DG of NIC from the point of view of transparency. Along with this, a request was also made to order the Accountant General to conduct a special audit of the entire account as per Section 108 of the Municipal Act.
