The Indian Express               27.04.2013

No property tax on mobile towers: HC

The Gujarat High Court Thursday struck down as unconstitutional a legal provision introduced by the state government that enabled local institutions of self-governance to levy property tax on mobile towers while considering them as buildings. A division bench comprising Justices Akil Kureshi and Sonia Gokani, while passing the judgment, held that mobile towers were not buildings and ordered the state government to refund the property tax collected so far from different companies. The judgment came on a group of petitions by telecom companies challenging the provision introduced in 2011.

"The state government had introduced Gujarat Local Authorities Amendment Act, 2011, under the provisions of which local institutions of self-governance were given powers to levy property tax on mobile towers," Shalin Mehta, counsel for one of the petitioners, said.

The petitioners had argued that mobile towers were telegraph, and not buildings, and so property tax could not be levied on them.

Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, who appeared for the state government, had argued that these mobile towers were structures and therefore property tax could be levied on them.