1.A point of some interest has been raised by the petitioners before me who are the Corporation of the City of Mysore in these two Civil Revision Petitions. It may be briefly summarised in the following terms :
(a) Whether in a case where a group of citizens have presented a composite challenge to the enhancement of property tax through a writ petition filed before the High Court and the High Court has rejected the petition after hearing the parties through a speaking order which order has thereafter, been confirmed in appeal; it will, at all be open to another group of citizens to file a suit challenging the same notification as also the action?
(b) Where the Corporation contends that all matters relating to the levy of tax and challenges thereto are provided for in a self contained statute, and where there are specific provisions for redressal of grievances in such a statute, whether it would be open to a group of citizens to invoke the jurisdiction of the Civil Court if the enhancement is questioned or challenged?

2. The brief facts giving rise to these disputes need to be set out. The Corporation published a notification dt. 30th March, 1984 in the Karnataka Gazette dt. 6th September, 1984 setting out a proposal to revise the property taxes in that City. A public interest petition was filed by the Saraswathipuram Rate Payers Association which is a registered body, before this Court challenging the action in question. The petition was numbered as WP No. 12515/85 and after notice to the respondents, a learned Single Judge of this Court heard the petition on 21-3-1988. The matter was hotly contested and after hearing the parties, this Court dismissed the petition through a speaking order upholding the defence of the Corporation that there was no variation in the rate of taxation and that it was only a revision which the Corporation was competent to undertake in law. As regards the question of individual notices, the Corporation's learned Counsel had agreed to comply with this requirements and the petition came to be disposed of. The matter was thereafter taken in appeal to the Division Bench and the Division Bench confirmed the learned Single Judge's order.

3. The present proceedings have been instituted by a group of eight bodies in Mysore none of which were petitioners before the High Court in the earlier WP. These petitioners are the plaintiffs in OS No. 231 / 89 filed in the Court of the First Munsif at Mysore. They have challenged the enhancement of property tax principally on the ground that the rateable value of the properties which is the basis on which the tax is levied, has been arbitrarily and unjustifiably raised. Their whole challenge proceeds on the footing that the principles on which rateable value is to be fixed cannot be left to the individual whims and fancies of one or more officers, but that the well - settled legally defined principles governing such fixation have to be adopted and it is their case that this has not been done. There are a few subsidiary aspects which have also been taken up such as the fact that the Corporation sought to give retrospective effect to the decision which the plaintiffs maintain, is bad in law. A preliminary objection was raised by the defendant - Corporation in that suit wherein it was pointed out that the bar of res judicata would apply in so far as this very action of the Corporation was the subject matter of the earlier WP which had been decided in favour of the Corporation right up to the appellate stage and that therefore, the plaintiffs were precluded in law from re - agitating the issue. The second objection that was canvassed was with regard to the aspect of maintainability whereunder the contention raised was that the Act and the Rules framed thereunder are a self - contained piece of legislation and that they make adequate provisions for redressal of grievances of this type and that therefore, if the plaintiffs were aggrieved by the enhancement, that it was open to