Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials on Monday seized furniture at Manyata Tech park over non-payment of property tax of around Rs. 274 crore.
BBMP officials told International Business Times India, that the Manyata Tech Park authorities had not paid property tax since 2008-09, resulting in arrears to the tune of around Rs. 84 crore. The amount of tax the BBMP was owed had burgeoned to around Rs. 274 crore if the penalty for the non-payment and the interest rate on the penalty was taken into account, the officials said.
The tech park authorities had dragged the BBMP to court for the Rs. 84-crore tax notice. BBMP said there that Manyata Tech Park was initially claimed to be a non-residential area without air-conditioning, for which property tax comes to Rs. 8 per square foot. However, the buildings at Manyata Tech Park are all centrally air-cooled, leading the property tax on them to be Rs. 10 per square foot.
The matter was heard in Karnataka High Court, which ruled in the BBMP's favour in late May this year, according to a Deccan Herald report.
However, Manyata Tech Park had earlier this month contested the BBMP's tax demand notice in a division bench of the Karnataka HC, according to another report in Deccan Herald.
Meanwhile, BBMP officials on Monday raided the main office of Manyata Tech Park. "We had given them repeated notices, including those on the order of the high court judge, but they did not pay up," BBMP officials told IBT, adding, "We took away only the movable furniture."
Sources in some offices within Manyata Tech Park told IBT their functioning had not been affected by the BBMP action.
A Manyata Tech Park source, however, told IBT on condition of anonymity that there were mistakes in the BBMP's tax calculation. Manyata Tech Park could not be officially reached for a comment.
