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LAHORE, June 10: The Lahore High Court asked the Excise and Taxation Department on Monday to produce on Tuesday the record of the survey conducted by it to assess and determine the property tax leviable on immovable property in various areas.
The direction was made by Justice Jawad S Khwaja when the department claimed that it had done all the groundwork and completed all the formalities required by the Punjab Urban Immovable Property Tax and rules for assessment of property tax on the basis of rental value.
The judge is hearing about 80 writ petitions challenging the new assessment following last year’s judgments by the High Court and the Supreme Court that valuation tables prepared on the basis of the capital value rather than rental value of properties were illegal.
The judge had stayed the recovery of tax under the new assessment scheme when the provincial government failed to contest the petitions on two successive dates.
Advocate-General Maqbool Ilahi Malik subsequently moved an application for early vacation of stay orders, particularly in view of the impending annual budget. The government plea against interim relief and the main petitions are being heard together by the judge from day to day.
The petitioners allege that the tax liability has again been arbitrarily and mechanically determined without duly considering the rental value and other relevant factors, inviting public objections and issuing public notices, allowing public inspection of the valuation tables and involving the excise and taxation officers, who are the ‘assessing authorities.’
The mandatory requirements of Sections 3,5,5-A,6,7, 8,9 and 19 of the Property Tax Act and Rules 3,6,7,8,10 and 11 of the Property Tax Rules, the petitioners claim, have not been met.
The proceedings will resume on Tuesday.
LHC moved: The Lahore High Court was on Monday requested to order recovery of a mental hospital inmate allegedly detained by police at the Kot Lakhpat jail.
A petition filed by a woman of Qila Deedar Singh, Gujranwala district, said her 22-year-old son, Asghar, was admitted to the Government Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases, Lahore, in October 2000.
He was said to have been discharged without information to her or his 80-year-old blind father. Police arrested him in a motorcycle theft case when he came out.
Under Section 84 of the penal code, the petitioner’s counsel, M.D. Tahir, said, no insane person can be charged or arrested.
LAWYERS ENROLLED: Five of the 17 lawyers who applied were enrolled as Supreme Court advocates on Monday.
A meeting of the Pakistan Bar Council Enrolment Committee was held on Saturday under the Chairmanship of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry at the Supreme Court Registry here. Committee members Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari and Rasheed A. Razvi were present.
The Lawyers found fit for enrolment were Javed Sarfraz, Nadeemud Din Malik, Abdul Majeed Iftikhar, Mazhar Iqbal Sidhu and Muhammad Ishaq all from Lahore.
Eleven applicants were not found up to the mark and their cases were deferred for further consideration in a future meeting.
The case of another applicant was deferred due to his absence.
ENROLMENT APPEAL: The hearing of an appeal titled ‘Ms Marium Kaiser, Advocate, Bahawalpur, versus the Punjab Bar Council, Lahore,’ filed under Section 32 of the Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Act, 1973, against an order of the Punjab Bar Council, was adjourned at the request of the appellant.
