( 1 ) HEARD Sri Metta Chandrasekar Rao, counsel representing the appellant and Sri T. S. Venkata Ramana, counsel representing the respondent.

( 2 ) THE appellant in the Second Appeal is the Religious Endowments Department represented by its Executive Officer of Turner s choultry-Visakapatnam-2, and the respondent is Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, represented by its Commissioner-Visakhapatnam. The appellant herein had preferred the present Second Appeal aggrieved by the Judgment and Decree made in A. S. No. 174 of 1991 on the file of the IV Additional District Judge, Visakhapatnam wherein the learned Judge had reversed the Judgment and Decree of the II Additional District Munsif Visakhapatnam in O. S. No. 1539 of 1987.

( 3 ) THE facts in brief are as hereunder: The parties are referred to as plaintiff and defendant for the purpose of convenience as arrayed in the original suit. The plaintiff instituted O. S. No. 1539 of 1987 on the file of the II Additional District Munsif Viskahpatnam for declaration that the disconnection notice claiming water charges from the plaintiff-choultry bearing Door No. 28-2-41 without any assessment on the said choultry is invalid and inoperative, and for a consequential relief of permanent injunction restraining the defendant-Corporation from collecting any water tax or water charges mentioned in the impugned notice and for costs of the suit.

( 4 ) IT is pleaded in the plaint that the plaintiff s choultry called Turner s Choultry, is a part and parcel of the Charitable Endowment in the management of its Executive Officer at Visakhapatnam and the Raja Saheb of Bobbili sponsored the scheme for construction of a choultry for the benefit of the middle and upper class visitors and pilgrims without any discrimination of caste, creed and religion. It was also pleaded that the Raja Saheb of Chemudu Estate donated the site and the other Rajas of Bobbili, Vizianagaram etc. , besides the philanthropic people of Visakhapatnam District extended their charity and got constructed the said Choultry in the year 1890, and for so many years it was run on altruistic and laudable principles and it was a center of extraction of the outside visitors to Visakhapatnam. It was further pleaded that later on, an element of commercialism had crept into the choultry premises and it became more prominent when the then Visakhapatnam Municipality used to manage the said choultry. It was also pleaded that under such circumstances the State Government thought it fit to change over the management from the Municipality to the plaintiff Endowments Department. Consequently, the then Municipality handed over the management of said choultry on 31-8-76 to the plaintiff Endowments Department without imposition of any conditions to pay the house tax etc. , for the said choultry to the Municipality, and ever since the plaintiff department is not paying any tax at all to the Municipality and the latter is fully aware of the altruistic purpose for which the Endowments Department is functioning for the benefit of the public, the executive officer is empowered to file the suit. It was further pleaded that the Defendant-Corporation stepped into the shoes of the then Municipality by operation of law, and now the said Corporation is demanding to pay water tax for the plaintiff-choultry, and therefore, the then Executive Officer of the plaintiff-choultry addressed several letters seeking for exemption from payment of water charges and the correspondence with the defendant Corporation is still pending and while so, the Defendant-Corporation sent the disconnection notice to the Executive Officer on 28-9-1987 threatening to disconnect or cut off water supply to the choultry, if the demand was not completed within time. The said notice is not at all bona fide and the same does not give any scope to issue section 685 notice to the Municipal Corporation in order to take appropriate action against the illegal claim put forth by the d