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Judgment
Viswanatha Sastri, J.—Petition by the plaintiff in S.C.S. No. 5450 of 1922 on the file of the Court of Small Causes, Trichinopoly, to revise
the decree, dated 16th April, 1923.
The suit was to recover back professional tax collected from the plaintiff. The plaintiff is a resident of Hyderabad and has a house within the
municipal limits of Srirangam where he comes and spends a portion of his vacation. He was called upon to pay professional tax for carrying on
money-lending business at Srirangam and paid a sum of Rs. 50 under protest. It was urged before me that as he did not reside within the municipal
limits of Srirangam for 60 days in the halfyear for which the tax was collected, he was not liable to be assessed. It was conceded that during the
half-year for which the tax was levied the plaintiff did come and reside at his house at Srirangam for some days. Such being the case he was a
person liable to be assessed, in case he came u/s 95 of the District Municipalities Act. The term ""residence "" is defined in Section 3, Clause 25 of
the Act, and the plaintiff must therefore be deemed to reside within the limits of the Srirangam Municipality. Now assuming for a moment that he
ought to have resided for 60 days in the half-year for which he was assessed; Section 354(2) of the Act read with Clause 28 of Schedule IV, bars
the suit. The case appears to me to be on all fours with the case of Municipal Council of Nellore v. Rangayya ILR (1895) Mad 10 which was
followed in Municipal Chairman, Virudupatti v. Saravana Pillai (1919) 10 L.W. 592. There a house which was completed only on 15th August,
1893, was assessed on 11th September, 1893, and tax collected for the half-year ending 30th September, 1893. It was held that although the
building was not in a habitable state for 60 days in the half-year, it should not be said that there was any illegal levy, and that the remedy lay only by
way of appeal to the Municipal Council. I dismiss the petition with costs.