HON'BLE MR JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION No.5905 of 2010 15th March 2010 Between: Mars Beauty Skin & Hair Care and another … Petitioner and The Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Lower Tank Bund, Hyderabad and others … Respondents. THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION NO.5905 OF 2010 ORDER: Heard Sri M. Praveen Kumar, learned Counsel for the petitioners, and Sri R. Radhakrishna Reddy, learned Standing Counsel for the Municipal Corporation appearing for the respondents. At their request, the writ petition is being disposed of at the stage of admission. The proprietor of petitioners 1 and 2 is a beautician running beauty parlours. She had put up display boards on the premises of petitioners 1 and 2. The 3rd respondent, claiming to be an agent of the 1st respondent, served notice dated 22.02.2010 demanding that the petitioners pay Rs.31,609/- towards advertisement fee, in respect of non-lit/Lit boards indicating the name of the business, through Cheques/DDs in their favour within seven days of receipt of the notice. Both counsel would agree that the subject matter of this writ petition is covered by a judgment of this Court in W.P. No.23354 of 2009 and batch dated 31.12.2009 wherein this Court held that the notice issued by the 3rd respondent, calling upon the petitioners to pay advertisement fee as mentioned in the notice through Cheques/DDs in their favour within seven days from the date of receipt of the notice, is in violation of the law. This Court held that the power to demand a fee or tax was specifically vested with the Commissioner or any person authorized by him; such persons should be the officials of the Corporation itself; Section 169 of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act (for short ‘the Act’) required that any amount received by the Corporation towards tax and fee must be credited to its consolidated fund; the permission accorded by the Corporation to the Agency to collect the fee which partook the characteristics of a tax was totally opposed to the scheme under the Act; and the notice issued to the petitioners requiring them to pay the fee “through Cheques/DDs in favour of USM Business Systems Pvt. Ltd.” was in violation of Section 169 of the Act. The impugned demand notice was, accordingly, set aside. While several contentions are urged in challenge to the validity of the demand notice, I consider it wholly unnecessary to examine any of them in as much as the impugned demand notice is liable to be set aside on the short ground that the 3rd respondent could not have directed the petitioner to pay the advertisement fee through Cheques/DDs in their favour as such a demand contravened Section 169 of the Act. The impugned demand notice is, accordingly, quashed. Needless to state that this order will not preclude the 1st respondent-Corporation from initiating proceedings afresh, in accordance with law, against the petitioner with regards levy and demand of advertisement fee. The Writ Petition is, accordingly, disposed of. However, in the circumstances, without costs. Date: 15.03.2010 ____________________________ RAMESH RANGANATHAN, J CVRK/MRKR