Following
question was referred to larger Bench to decide in WRIT - C No. - 56175 of 2011 titled as Mahrajwa
And Others v State Of U.P. Thru Its Secy. And Others by the Allahabad High Court:
Whether
decision in Mange Ram
& Anr. Vs. State of U.P. & Others, 2010 (2) CRC 216 in so far as it
takes the view that there is no provision under any of the Acts for levying any
collection charges for mere issuance of citation or sale proclamation is
correct; or, the decision in Chinta Mani Vs. State of U.P. & Ors.,
2011 (1) AWC 637 holding that provisions of sub-section (2) of Section 279 do
not contain any provision for an absolute waiver of recovery charges where the
citation has been issued under sub-section (1) and the charging section
empowers the Collector to raise such demand subject to the rules and provision
of Revenue Recovery Act U.P. Act No.37 of 2001, is correct.
Bench having three judges namely Hon'ble R.K.
Agrawal, J., Hon'ble S.P. Mehrotra, J. and Hon'ble S.U. Khan, J. has said:
“The
issuance of recovery certificate is a ministerial job. If no concrete further
steps have been taken and the arrears have not been realised by them and
instead the defaulter pays the amount of arrears directly to the creditor or to
the person to whom it is due then it cannot be said by any stretch of
imagination that the State authorities have recovered the amount of arrears.”
At page 20-21
……………………………………………….
Referring
and discussing various judgment the bench said:
“From
the aforesaid decisions, it is absolutely clear that it has to be seen as to
under what Act the recovery has been initiated. Whether it is under 1890
Act, 1950 Act or 1973 Act. If the recovery proceedings have been initiated
under 1890 Act then in that event if the recovery is being made under Section 3
of the Act then cost of recovery would be 10% of the amount stated in the
certificate. However, if
recovery certificate has been issued but no recovery had been
made by the State authorities, who
had issued the recovery certificate as for example the
defaulter directly deposits the amount or the recovery certificate is withdrawn
or cancelled for any reason whatsoever then in that event there is no question
of charging any costs of recovery.” At page 23
…………………………………….
We are, therefore, in respectful
agreement with the view taken by this Court in the case of Mange Ram
& Anr.(supra) and hold that the
decision in the case of Chinta Mani(supra) does
not lay down the correct law at page 24
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