The main point in this appeal appears to be covered by the decision of a Bench of this Court in Madura Municipality v. Muthuswami Chettiar 1 . But in our opinion this decision prima facie requires re-consideration.

In 1934 there was a notification under section 12 of the Madras Town planning Act requiring the Corporation of Madras, the respondent to prepare, publish and submit for their sanction a draft scheme in respect of certain lands in the Thousand Lights area. The Corporation of Madras accordingly submitted a scheme which was sanctioned by the Government and published in the Gazette on 7th July, 1941. An arbitrator was appointed by the Government as provided in the Act. The Corporation made a claim before the arbitrator under sections 23 and 24 of the Act claiming that the property in suit was liable to betterment contribution and that in their opinion the market value of the property on the date of the notification was a particular amount. The claim was considered by the arbitrator under section 27 of the Act and he made an award on 26th August, 1945 which was served on the appellant on 3rd September, 1945. The arbitrator decided (1) that the suit property was liable to betterment contribution and (2) that the market value of the property was Rs. 1,500 per ground. The plain iff preferred revision petitions to the Commissioner and appeals to the Council but did not obtain any relief. Thereupon the Commissioner issued a demand on the plaintiff for payment of the contribution. This led to the filing of a suit which was also of no avail. The plaintiff was therefore compelled to pay a sum of Rs. 7, 613-9-9 under protest. He then filed the suit out of which this appeal arises for a declaration that the levy of betterment tax was illegal and for a refund of a sum of Rs. 7,613-9-9 already collected as betterment tax and for an injunction restraining the defendant from taking out distress applications to compel the plaintiff pay the betterment tax in future. The learned City Civil Judge before whom the suit was filed held that there was no justification for the Corporation to levy betterment tax for the suit property. Nevertheless he dismissed the suit because he held that the only remedy open to the plaintiff was to file an appeal against the award of the arbitrator. As no such appeal was filed, the award of the arbitrator became final and therefore the suit did not lie.

The decision of the question which arises in this appeal, namely, whether the award of the arbitrator under section 27 is final and whether the Court is precluded from dealing with the question whether a particular property is or is not liable to betterment contribution depends upon the construction mainly of section 27 read with section 23 of the Act. Section 23 runs thus:

"Where by the making of any town-planning scheme (the value of any property has increased or is likey to increase), the municipal council, if it makes a claim for the purpose within the time (if any) limited by the scheme, (not less than three months) after the date of publication of a notificationof the (State Government) sanctioning a scheme under section ,4, shall be entitled to recover from the owner of such property an annual betterment contribution for such term of years and at such uniform percentage of the increase in value not exceeding ten percentum as may be fixed in the scheme

Section 24 lays down the principles according to which the betterment contribution has to be calculated Section 25 declares that the betterment contribution shah be a first charge on the property on which it is due, subject to the prior payment of land revenue and sub-section (2) of section 25 provides for making rules for the assessment and collection of the betterment contribution, and subject to such rules the Corporation shall have the same powers and adopt the same procedure for he assessment and collection of property tax. Section 26 confers a power on the owner of a property to object