SC rejects Navi Mumbai SEZ's plea against Maha govt

The Supreme Court today rejected the plea of Navi Mumbai SEZ Pvt Ltd, promoted by RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s close aide Anand Jain, seeking to restrain Maharashtra from demanding taxes in respect of land acquired for the special economic zone.

A bench headed by Justice V S Sirpurkar, while refusing to give any relief, asked the Bombay High Court, before which the matter is pending, to decide Navi Mumbai SEZ Pvt Ltd’s plea within three months.

Navi Mumbai SEZ, which is developing a SEZ over 4,840 hectares in association with Cidco (the Maharashtra government’s industrial and township development arm), has been asked to pay non-agricultural taxes or land revenue for parcels of land acquired in Thane Belapur Industrial Area which included Trans harbour, Panvel, Thane Creek.

The company had challenged the Bombay High Court verdict that admitted its plea but asked it to deposit Rs 3 crore towards the pending demand of Rs 8.40 crore raised by the state revenue authorities and also directed it to pay 50 per cent of the future demands, whenever raised.

Stating that non-agricultural taxes cannot be levied, it said that Section 115 of the Maharashtra land Revenue Code clearly provides that such taxes would be leviable only from the date on which the land was actually put to non-agricultural use after completion of construction and not from the date when permission for non-agricultural use was granted.