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Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation was a case where a person was in
arrears of property tax, due under the Bombay Provincial Municipal
Corporation Act, 1949. Consequently, the Municipal Corporation created a
charge over the property of the defaulter. However, the property was sold in
execution of a mortgage decree. When the Municipal Corporation purported
to exercise their charge over the property, the purchaser in court auction
filed a suit for a declaration that he was the owner of the property and that
the arrears of municipal taxes due by the transferor were not recoverable
from him by proceeding against the property purchased in auction. In the
appeal before this Court, the Municipal Corporation's main argument was
that where the local law provided for the creation of a charge against a
property for which municipal taxes were due, transferees of such properties
were imputed with constructive knowledge of any charge created against the
properties that they had purchased. This argument was, however, rejected.
This Court held that while constructive notice was sufficient to satisfy the
requirement of notice in the proviso to Section 100 of the TP Act, whether
the transferee had constructive notice of the charge had to be determined on
the facts and circumstances of the case. In other words, this Court held that
there could be no fixed presumption as to the transferee having constructive
notice of the charge against the property. In fact, the principle laid down in
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has been correctly applied in a sales tax
case similar to the present case.