The petitioner is the Mother Superior of the Congregation of the Teaching Sisters of St. Dorothy Daughters of the Sacred Heart. She is challenging Ext.P5 order passed by the 1st respondent, declining to grant exemption from payment of property tax for a building bearing door No.IX/135. The petitioner submits, the said building is a Formation House, used for educating and teaching girls, who intend to become nuns. Thus, the said building is used for educational purposes. Since, girls are educated as mentioned above, the Formation House of the Congregation should be treated as an educational institution, for the limited purpose of assessment of property tax, in terms of Section 235(1) (d) of the Municipality Act, 1994. But, the said contention of the petitioner has been rejected by the 1st respondent Municipality, by Ext.P5 and Ext.P6 demand notice has been issued. This Original Petition was filed, challenging Exts.P5 and P6.

2. It is beneficial to extract Section 235(1) (d) of the Municipality Act, which reads as follows:

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

(a)

(d) buildings recognized by the Government or registered with the Municipality under this Act and owned and occupied by educational institutions and used only for teaching and libraries open to public.”

Relying on the above provision, the petitioner submits that the allotment of building number by the Municipality to the said building should be treated as the registration given by the Municipality and also recognition granted by the Government. Since, the Formation House of the Congregation should be treated as an educational institution and the building is owned by it, the above said building is entitled to get exemption under Section 235(1) (d), it is submitted.

3. The Municipality has filed a counter affidavit, resisting the prayers in the O.P. It is stated that building permit was granted to the petitioner, for the construction of a building for own occupation. The building number was allotted on assessing he property tax at the first instance, after the completion certificate of the building was received from the petitioner. The same cannot be treated as recognition by the Government or registration by the Municipality, it is contended.

4. Heard the learned counsel on both sides.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner, relying on the decision of this Court in St. Liobha Bhavan v. Kodakara Panchayat (1996(1) K.L.T. 304), submitted that the Formation House should be treated as an educational institution. Since, the building in question is owned by that educational institution and it has been granted registration by the Municipality, by allotting the building number, the said building is entitled to get exemption from payment of property tax. It is further pointed out that there is no provision for recognition of a building by the government, or registration by the Municipality, under the Municipality Act. Therefore, the allotment of door/building number should be treated as equivalent to recognition or registration, it is contended. The learned counsel for the Municipality pointed out that the aforementioned decision is one, arising under the Kerala Panchayat Act, 1960, interpreting an entirely different statutory provision. Therefore, the said decision will not have any application in this case.

6. There is no provision for recognition of buildings by the Government or for their registration by the Municipalities under the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994. But, when Section 235(1) (e) is read along with other provisions, it can be safely assumed that the Legislature, when it used the expression “buildings recognized by the Government”, meant the buildings owned by recognized educational institutions, under the provisions of the Kerala Education Act and Rules. Section 507 provides for registration of Tutorial institutions. So, the expression “building registered with the Municipality”, used in Section 235(1)