Govt administrator tries to pass off soc tax as 10 times owed sum

Members of Urban Gram society in Kirkatwadi have approached the deputy district registrar of co-operative societies for action against him

The role of a government-appointed administrator in any assigned body is ideally to ensure transparency in its functioning, but in a case has now come to light, members of a Kirkatwadi-based society claim their administrator actually went in the other direction — misleading them on the payment of non-agricultural (NA) tax.

A complaint in this regard has been raised by members of the Urban Gram society in Kirkatwadi on Sinhgad Road, who approached the district deputy registrar of co-operative societies against the said administrator, Mahendra Nehul.

As per society members, the tehsildar’s office had sent a notice of outstanding NA tax of Rs 8.80 lakh to them initially. Later, however, during an audit, the authorities found out that the actual outstanding amount was Rs 88,200, after which a revised notice was sent from the talathi’s office. However, as both these notices were received by the administrator, it turns out that he never informed them about the revised notice of Rs 88,200 dues, and kept on projecting that the outstanding amount was in excess of Rs 8 lakh.

Sunil Mhasawade, one of the society members of Urban Gram who acted as a whistleblower in this case, said, “On February 12, we received a notice from administrator Nehul about the annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled for February 21. With this, he also attached a copy of the NA tax notice, mentioning the amount as Rs 8,88,200 with a penalty of Rs 35,100. In the notice sent by the tehsildar’s office, it had been mentioned that if these charges are not paid, immovable property of the society would be auctioned off.”

Mhasawade stated that as per the notice, several society members attended the AGM on February 21, where the administrator once more read out the notice to them. He said, “He clearly told members that if the society does not pay the amount, its property will be auctioned off. He created panic among members. He later proposed to challenge the notice in Bombay High Court and stated that a lawyer for the same would be appointed on the same day, as there was not much of time. He contacted a lawyer during the meeting and the lawyer quoted his fees as Rs 1 lakh. I took objection to this and stated that there would be other lawyers who would charge much less and help out equally. But Nehul created panic among society members, stating that there was not much time in hand. He got their approval to appoint this lawyer and made the society pay the Rs 1 lakh fees on the same day.”

Soon enough, society members found this behaviour during the AGM fishy, and decided to look into details of the tax payment on their own. Another society member, Prasad Joshi, said, “We went to the talathi’s office to verify the amount of NA tax. There, we found that the actual amount of tax was 1.24 lakh, including Rs 88,200 as tax and the rest as penalty. This amount was from 2014 till date — but due to some clerical error, it had been printed as in excess of Rs 8 lakh in the first notice.”

The members got another shock of when they came to know that the talathi office had already communicated to the administrator about the error and a revised notice with the reduced amount had been sent to him already. “While this revised information was with him before the AGM, he said absolute nothing about it during the meet,” said Joshi.

Society members also stated that after coming to know about the dupe, they have gone against Nehul to the deputy district registrar of co-operative societies, Dr Rajaram Dhondkar.

Said Mhasawade, “We have demanded that the administrator ensure that the amount of Rs 1 lakh— which he compelled the society to pay for a lawyer — must be returned at the earliest. We also demand action against him for misleading society members instead of guiding them properly.”

Dhondkar commented on the matter saying, “After receiving this complaint, we have removed Nehul from the post of administrator of the society and a new one has been appointed. He also has been instructed to repay all expenses, for which had asked the society to incur costs. Once the new administrator calls for another general body meeting, the earlier decision will be reversed and once done, we will conduct a departmental inquiry against him.”