Targeted despite paying property tax: Shalimar Mall owner

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, July 8

RK Aggarwal, the owner of Shalimar Mall in Sector 5, today accused the General House of the Panchkula Municipal Corporation of acting in a mala fide manner against him with regard to the due property tax.

Recently, the MC House had passed a resolution for the reevaluation of property tax owed by Shalimar Mall.

“If one just makes a small effort to check the records of the Panchkula MC online, nearly Rs7.5-lakh property tax from Shalimar Mall has been deposited in excess with the MC. So, I have in fact paid more property tax than actually invoiced by the MC. How can I be a defaulter?’’ said Aggarwal.

He further claimed: “After the property tax notification of the Haryana Government in 2013, over Rs33 lakh were deposited towards property tax by me. The MC raised a baseless property tax bill-cum-notice of Rs 4.26 crore in 2017. We had challenged the same before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court had directed the mall management to deposit Rs1 crore and file an appeal before the Divisional Commissioner (Ambala Division). Following the court orders, an appeal was filed before the Divisional Commissioner (Ambala Division) and Rs1 crore was deposited with the MC. Subsequently, the Divisional Commissioner forwarded the matter to the MC Commissioner for passing a speaking order. The order was passed on March 30, 2021.’’

He added: “Why have other similar sized properties been kept out of the purview of this arbitrary resolution, despite insufficient payments of property tax. It is clear that the MC house has passed the said resolution with intentions of targeting just my property.”

What the Mayor says

Mayor Kulbhushan Goyal said: “Why would we target anybody without any reason? We will act according to whatever comes out in the revaluation report.”