Attachment notices sent to housing societies for non-payment of tax
10 Feb, 2014The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued property attachment notices for non-payment of property taxes to two housing societies Sukhada and Shubhada, in which many top politicians own space.
A senior official of the corporation said that the two societies had a total outstanding tax of Rs. 16.5 crore pending against them since 2006-07. The civic body had issued notices to them to clear the dues by September 30, 2013 but the societies deposited a mere Rs. 2.6 crore against their outstanding. Following this, the BMC has sent the attachment notices to the society management and has given them 21 days to deposit the pending amount failing which it would hold an auction of the property.
The societies contain the residential flats and commercial premises of political leaders like Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, former union home minister Shivraj Patil and many more and some of them have earlier been given notices for unauthorized construction and illegal conversions.
The reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act also shows that the societies’ land originally belonged to Mumbai Police and it was taken away from the home department and handed over to political leaders in 2004 for building posh residential flats and commercial premises.