Petitioner is Challenging Ext.P13 order issued by the respondent, by which property tax exemption claimed under Section 235 and vacancy remission claimed under Section 239 of the Kerala Municipalities Act 1994 hereinafter called the “Act” are declined. I have heard counsel appearing for the petitioner and standing counsel Smt. A.G. Aneetha appearing for the respondent.

2. Petitioner who is a trust constructed a four storied building within Corporation of Kochi for providing accommodation to ladies in their old age. Occupancy certificate was issued on 18.4.1994. The building consists of ten rooms in each of the four floors out of which 34 rooms are available for accommodation and balance rooms for use as Kitchen. Office, Dr’s room. Etc. The Corporation treated each floor of the building as a separate building and accordingly gave four numbers to it. The petitioner claimed property tax exemption under Section 235 (1)(C) and (i) of the Act and in the alternative claimed vacancy remission under Section 239 of the Act for the period the building or part of it remained vacant. Since claim of exemption from property tax was on the ground that the petitioner is a charitable institution and is providing low cost accommodation to distitutes, this Court called for a detailed report from the Corporation. Eventhough a report is not seen in the file, counsel submitted that a report prepared by the Revenue inspector containing all facts was furnished in Court and a copy was furnished in Court for any perusal. Petitioner also filed various documents including a certificate obtained from Income-tax Department in support of their contention that the petitioner is a charitable institution.

3. Since exemption is claimed under Section 235(1)(c) and (i) of the Act those provisions are to be referred to and for easy reference the sub-sections are extracted hereunder.

235. Exemption:- (1) The following buildings and lands shall be exempt from the property tax:

(a) ……..

(c) Choultries for the occupation of which no rent is charged and choultries where the rent charged for the occupation is used exclusively for charitable purpose.

……………

(i) public building and places used for charitable purposes of sheltering the distitutes or animals.

Explanation:- The exemption granted under the section shall not extent to buildings and lands for which rent is realized by the owners thereof and to residential quarters attached to schools and colleges not being hostels or residential quarters attached to hospitals, dispensaries and libraries.

Even though petitioner claims that he buildings in question is a choultry because rent collected at the rate of Rs.500 per head per month is moderate and rent collected is used for charitable purpose. Standing counsel for the respondent referred to the decision of this Court in Aliya Arabic College v Kasaragod Municipality, (1998) 2 K.L.T. 11 and contended that Choultry in Malayalam means “Sathram”, which covers building given free of rent or at very moderate rate of rent. According to her, through inspection, the information obtained by the Corporation is that the monthly rent charged per head is Rs.2000/- which by no standard can be called low or moderate. Even assuming that petitioner’s claim that rent collected is only Rs.500/- per head per month is accepted, still it cannot be said to be very low or moderate to call the building a choultry is the case of the respondent. I do not think there is any need to consider what exactly is the rent collected by the petitioner, because I am of the view that building by itself cannot be called a choultry which in Malayalam means Sathram. Apart from the meaning assigned to this word in the decision above referred, the provision in the Act enacted in Malayalam uses the word Sathram and the corresponding word used in the translated version for Sathram is Choultry. A choultry or Sathram is not a place of regular residence and is only a place provided for temporary accommodation for gues