Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, 1949 – Economic Policy decision – Challenge to – Public interest litigation filed by the respondent no.1 challenging the revision of property tax by the appellant-Corporation for a period of five years- 201718 to 2021-22, thereby increasing the tax rates in respect of properties situated within the jurisdictional limits of appellantCorporation, which was irrational and arbitrary by passing a resolution and allegedly without following the procedure established by law – High Court quashed and set aside the resolution passed by the appellant-Corporation determining the mode and manner in which the property taxes are to be imposed for a period of five years – Sustainability: Held: Not sustainable – Locus of the respondent-writ petitioner in filing the writ petition before the High Court questionable – Respondent-writ petitioner, did not claim that he was representing the entire populace of the Akola city – There exists a mechanism of statutory remedy provided under the 1949 Act for challenging the decision of the Corporations – Thus, the writ petition purportedly in public interest was nothing but an action taken as a subterfuge to avoid filing of the appeals against the proposal to increase the property tax – High Court exceeded the well-settled tenets of scope of judicial review in effectively substituting its own opinion for that of the appellant-Corporation – Matters of tax revision fell squarely within the domain of the appellant-Corporation, and the High Court ought not to have reassessed the merits of the policy decision as if it was sitting in appeal over the said decision – Trivial errors in the process of revision would not vitiate the entire regime of tax revision and collection – High Court not justified in invoking powers of judicial review in a public interest litigation so as to interfere in the economic policy decision taken by the appellant-Corporation to increase the rates of the property taxes and particularly when such revision was made after a considerable gap of about 16 years – Said exercise not permissible to be undertaken in the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of the Court – No finding by the High Court that the decision to increase the tax rates perverse or unconstitutional – Further, in the absence of any challenge to the substantive authority of the appellant-Corporation to revise municipal taxes, the scope of scrutiny before the High Court stood confined solely to examining whether the statutory procedure had been complied with – High Court ought not to have embarked upon a roving inquiry into the merits or wisdom of the decision to revise the tax rates unless it was demonstrated that the procedure adopted by the appellant was ex-facie arbitrary, perverse, unreasonable or in blatant derogation of the governing statutory provisions – No such material placed before the Court, nor does the record disclose any such infirmity – Thus, the High Court transgressed the permissible limits of judicial review in interfering with the decision of the appellant to revise the rate of property taxes – Judgment passed by the High Court set aside. [Paras 12, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 28] Constitution of India – Art.226 – Writ Jurisdiction – Public interest litigation challenging economic policy decision – Judicial Interference – Scope:
Held: Judicial interference by way of public interest litigation is available only if there is injury to public because of dereliction of constitutional obligations on the part of the Government – Writ jurisdiction of the High Court cannot be exercised in public interest for questioning the economic/fiscal policy or reforms sought to be undertaken by the Government or its functionaries. [Paras 21, 12] Municipal Bodies – Scheme of municipal governance – Financial Autonomy – Necessity – Discussed [Paras 6-8]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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