ORDER :- A common question of law arises in this application and in five others, which have all been heard together. (Matter No. 135 of 1954 Karnani Properties v. The Corporation of Calcutta, Matter No. 67 of 1954 - Dr. Subodh Kumar Ganguly v. Assessor Calcutta Corporation and ors; Matter No. 29 of 1955 Pataki Chandra Muttylal v. The Assessor, Corporation of Calcutta and ors; Matter No. 45 of 1955 Bepin Behari Sadhukhan v. Corporation of Calcutta and Matter No. 59 of 1955 Sankar Narayan Gooptu v. The Corporation of Calcutta. The point arises in the following manner. Both under the Calcutta Municipal Acts 1923 and 1951, the unit of assessment is either "land" or where there is a structure upon it, the "land" and "building". The word building has been defined (See S. 5 (6) ). This unit is commonly referred to as Premises although the word Premises is not itself defined. Thus, when we speak of a municipal premises, we generally mean a building which includes the outhouses, boundary walls, etc., together with the land appertaining to the building. (See Corporation of Calcutta v. Moti Chand, 66 Ind App 42 : (AIR 1939 PC 20) (A). But, both under the Act of 1923 (S. 135) and under the Act of 1951 (S. 176) a part of a premises could be separately assessed from the rest of the premises. I am of course considering the case of a common ownership. Where, the premises is subdivided because the ownership has been sub-divided, that is quite another thing. (S. 174) Even in these applications, the Corporation has not urged that in such a case, there must still be one unit of assessment. But even where one owner had a large building, which was let out to a number of tenants, he frequently subdivided the same into a number of different premises. This was primarily done to meet the case of vacancies. In order to get remission of taxes for vacancies, notice has to be given to the Corporation. This could be done effectively if the individual tenants had different premises numbers. From the point of view of the Corporation, while the Act of 1923 was in operation, it made little difference, because under S. 124, there was one fixed rate for calculating the consolidated rate (not exceeding 23 per cent, of the annual valuation). The position has however changed under the Act of 1951. Now, under S. 165, we have a graduated rate. Thus, the larger the unit, the increase in rate is progressively larger. The rate does not work out cumulatively but in progression. It is therefore not in the interest of the Corporation to sub-divide a large premises into several units. It is to its interest to have as large a unit as is possible, in every case. Inevitably therefore, it has attempted to undo what has been done in the past. Where one building under one ownership was subdivided in the past into many units, it has attempted to amalgamate them into smaller units. The two questions that have arisen therefore are :

(1) Can the Corporation effect such an amalgamation?

(2) If it has power to amalgamate, has such power been exercised in accordance with law? Before I proceed to deal with the matter it would be useful to analyse what has happened in the cases under consideration. I have set out below the position as appears from the pleadings.

It will be observed that though the Corporation claims that the amalgamations have been made where there is one building, it is not as if one single building has invariably been given a single number. Even in the same building, well defined and separated portions have been allotted different numbers. Thus, while theoretically the Corporation claims to have the power of amalgamating the whole of the Park Mansions into one single premises, in fact, it has been numbered into five different premises. If the Corporation has the power of amalgamation then this is more a concession than an excess of jurisdiction. The question is whether the Corporation has the power of amalgamation at all. So far, I have been talking of the Corporation havin

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