A large number of property owners are knocking on the doors of the High Court of Karnataka every day challenging the notices issued by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which has demanded payment of additional property tax with penalty and interest by claiming that several owners have underpaid property tax by not declaring details of their properties in the Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) of payment of annual property tax since 2016-17.
In majority of the petitions, the Court has already restrained the BBMP from taking any coercive or precipitative steps against the petitioner-owners of the properties till next date of hearing or further orders by imposing certain conditions on the petitioners. In some cases the court has also directed the BBMP to de-seal the properties with conditions on petitioner-property owners.
Do joint inspection
In several petitions, the Court has directed the BBMP to jointly inspect the properties along with the owners or authorised representatives of the petitioners, as one of the main complaint by the petitioner-property owners is that either no show cause notice was issued to them prior to issuing demand notices or that the ‘‘so called’’ inspection by the BBMP officials for assessment/re-assessment was carried out in the absence of petitioners.
“The BBMP is to prepare a report after eliciting all necessary facts that would constitute ground for reopening self-assessment...,” Justice S. Sunil Dutt Yadv has ordered in many petitions.
Variance
Another grievance is that measurement of property done by the BBMP is at variance as declared by the petitioners in their SAS returns and the re-assessment made by the BBMP are grossly erroneous.
In some petitions, it has been alleged that the BBMP has treated certain portions of the properties as rented way back from 2016-17 even though properties had either remained vacant or not rented out and more particularly during COVID-19 lockdown. Such a wrong assessment was either due to not actually carrying out inspection of the properties by the officials or due to assumption based on the present declaration of nature of the use, the petitioners have contended.
Some of the petitioners have also questioned the legality of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Chief Commissioner of the BBMP for assessment, recovery and management of property tax and property card and they have contended that what has been prescribed can be done only by framing the rules and not through an SOP.
