Civic body seals 118 commercial shops for non-payment of property tax dues, Real Estate News, ET Real Estate

Navi Mumbai: Panvel The vigilance team of the property tax department of the civic body has started sealing. commercial Shops falling within their jurisdiction for default in payment of property tax levied by the civic body. The drive was launched from March 8 by serving notices to a total of 118 defaulters and sealing their properties.

Following this, many commercial property owners have promptly cleared property tax dues to prevent sealing of their properties and avoid loss of business. However, commercial property owners have alleged that the sealing of their properties is hand-wringing by the Panvel civic body at a time when a petition by an NGO opposing the retrospective property tax is pending in the High Court and a decision is awaited.

Ganesh Shete, Deputy Municipal Commissioner said, “In the last three days, we have served notices and sealed a total of 118 commercial properties. Out of these, 115 defaulters have paid their outstanding property tax bills. Thus a total property tax bill of Rs 2.12 crore was recovered. Three commercial property owners have paid in installments by giving post dated cheques. After completing the drive against commercial property owners, we will start sealing residential properties of property tax defaulters.”

Harishchandra Kadu, HOD of the Panvel civic body’s property tax department, said, “However some citizens under the banner of an NGO have filed a petition in the High Court to oppose the property tax. Panvel Municipal Corporation Claiming that the property tax is retrospective and amounts to double taxation as CIDCO is also levying service charges, the High Court has neither ordered a stay nor ordered that no coercive action be taken by the Panvel civic body. Can Therefore, the Panvel civic body may take action against property tax payment defaulters by sealing their properties and serving notices to clear the outstanding property tax bills immediately. Thereafter, a special drive has been launched initially against commercial shop owners who have defaulted in paying property tax.

Chitra Hariharan, owner of a commercial property in Kharghar, said, “The tremendous action taken by the PCMC By sealing off their property against property owners, smacks of extreme arbitrariness. This action has been taken despite the matter of property tax being pending in the PCMC area, whose order is awaited from the High Court.