( 1 ) BY way of this Writ Petition the MCD has assailed the Order of the learned Additional District Judge dated 18. 9. 2002 allowing the Appeal of the Respondent/assessee which had been filed under Section 169 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 (hereinafter referred to as `the DMC Act` ). The Appeal had been allowed principally on two grounds. Firstly, that the Notice under Section 126 of the DMC Act had not been served within the financial year for which the Rateable Value was sought to be increased/revised, and secondly, that in the opinion of the learned Additional District Judge, the Notice was found not be in consonance with law.

( 2 ) SO far as the first question is concerned, the DMC Act does not contain any provision prescribing the date or time on which a Notice issued under any provision or purpose of the Act will be deemed or considered to have been served. Section 444 of the DMC Act only deals with the method or mode of the service of a Notice. In the case at hand since the Assessee is an individual, Clause 1 (d) of that Section gets attracted. This Clause contemplates three methods by which an Assessee can be served with any notice under the Act:- (i) the Noticee can be served on the individual in person, or (ii) if such person cannot be found, it can be affixed on some conspicuous part of the concerned building, or (iii) it can be sent by Registered Post to the Assessee. All three methods can be employed severally or simultaneously.

( 3 ) IN the present case it is the second and third mode of service that has been adopted. It is not in dispute that the Notice under Section 126 of the DMC Act was despatched by Registered Post Acknowledgment Due on 27. 3. 1999 and was served on the Assessee on 3. 4. 1999. The contention of learned counsel for the Petitioner/mcd is that in these circumstances the Notice must be deemed to have been served on the Assessee within the same financial year ending on 31. 3. 1999. Reliance has been placed on the decision of MCD vs. Ram Kishan Khandelwal and Ors. , 101 (2002) DLT 169, the factual matrix of which was that the subject Assessment Order had been passed on 15. 3. 1999, was diarised in the Despatch Register on 31. 3. 1999 and was posted (sic. posted or received) on 6. 4. 1999. After comprehensively discussing the precedents on the point, it has been held by my Learned Brother, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, J. that the giving of the Notice is complete when the same is despatched though the time period for filing of the Objections would start once the Notice was received. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had applied the ratio in Khandelwal s case (supra) even to a Notice, in Jyoti Construction Co. vs. MCD, CWP No. 6165/2003, where the Notice which was dated 22. 3. 1999, was stated to have been despatched on 23. 3. 1999 and received only on 1. 4. 1999, i. e. in the next financial year.

( 4 ) LEARNED counsel for the Respondent has cited the decision of the Hon ble Supreme Court in The State of Orissa vs. Sudhansu Sekhar Misra and Ors. , 1968 (2)SCR 154, to buttress his contention that the said Judgment does not deal with the question of the service of a Notice issued under Section 126 of the DMC Act. Even if that be so, and the decision in Khandelwal s case (supra) would not strictly apply to the facts of the present case, I am in respectful agreement with the view proferred therein. The Proviso to Section 126 of the DMC Act employs the word "given" and I find no reason to depart from the view taken by my Learned Brother even in the case of the issuance of a Notice in contradistinction to the passing of an Assessment Order. In any event the decision in Jyoti Construction case (supra) applies on all fours. In these circumstances, since one of the modes for service prescribed under Section 444 of the DMC Act has been complied with and completed, it must be held that the Assessee had received notice within the financial year in respect of which the rateable value was to be