The Madras High Court has set aside a resolution of the Chennai and Coimbatore Corporations to levy 60 per cent surcharge on private unaided educational institutions in the two cities. Justice Anita Sumanth quashed the resolution, while allowing a batch of writ petitions from Good Shepherd Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Nungambakkam and 18 other schools in Chennai and one in Coimbatore, recently.
The legal issue raised by the petitioner schools was whether the Chennai City and Coimbatore City Municipal Corporations have the authority to levy surcharge of 60 per cent of the tax payable on their buildings used for educational purposes.
Petitioners senior counsel Father Xavier Arulraj drew the attention of the judge to an assessment made upon the schools and reiterated their readiness and promptness in remitting the half-yearly tax, as computed, though not surcharge, levied at the rate of 60 per cent. The enactment does not provide for the levy of surcharge and hence, there is no statutory authority from which the Corporations may draw power to levy the surcharge, he added.
As pointed out by Arulraj, the judge said that the sum total of general tax , educational tax , library cess amounts to 24.8 per cent of the annual value of buildings, which is within the permissible limit. But the addition of surcharge would carry the amount over and above the permissible limit. “For the aforesaid reason, the impugned resolution, to the extent to which it levies surcharge, is found contrary to the provisions of the respective enactments and hence, such levies are quashed,” the judge said.
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