Court fees on Mandatory Injunction

-





Shubham Budhiraja[1]

A filed a suit against B seeking mandatory injunction and mense profits. B filed O 7 R 11 seeking dismissal of suit for deficient court fees because for jurisdiction, the plaintiff valued at 2.5 crore but for court fees valued at Rs.250. The Delhi High court held that dual approach is not allowed. Once relief is valued as per suit valuation act then court fees has to be paid on it[2].

 

(I)                 Though it is in the discretion of the plaintiff to value his suit as per his bona fide belief and discretion, but once he has valued his suit in terms of Section 8 of the Suit Valuation Act, the court fee shall become payable on the same amount in terms of Section 7 of the Court Fees Act.

 

(II)               The plaintiff cannot adopt a dual policy of valuing his suit at a certain value for the purpose of jurisdiction and for the purpose of payment of court fees. Once the suit has been valued at a certain value, the ad-volerum court fees have to be paid mandatorily on the same valuation.

 

(III)             The plaintiff in the present case has valued his suit for the purpose of jurisdiction at Rs.2.5 crores while for the purpose of court fee has assessed each relief at Rs.500/- each.

 

(IV)              It is no doubt true that the law gives discretion to the plaintiff to value his suit and such discretion as exercised by the plaintiff in mentioning the valuation of the suit must not be interfered by the Court as observed by the Full Bench in Smt. Sheila Devi and Ors. Vs. Sh.  Kishan Lal Kalra and Ors. ILR (1974) II Delhi 491.

 

(V)                However, once the valuation has been done on a certain value by the plaintiff in exercise of his discretion, he is obliged to pay the court fee on the same amount in terms of Section 8 of the Suit Valuation Act as has been held in the decision of Apex Court in Commercial Aviation T. Co.(supra) and this court in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (supra).

 

(VI)              In the present case, while a suit for Mandatory injunction for seeking possession from a licensee or an unauthorized occupant is maintainable, but by virtue of Section 8 of the Suit Valuation Act read with Section 7 of the Court Fee Act it is held that the plaintiff is liable to pay advolerum court fee on the amount of Rs.2.5 crores on which he has valued his suit for the purpose of jurisdiction.


[1] Advocate, Delhi High Court, [LLB,ACS,BCOM(H)], Budhirajalawchambers@gmail.com

[2] CS(OS) 172/2021, Delhi High Court, Judgment dated 22/08/2022

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whether a person can be appointed as an arbitrator if his daughter is married to the son of the eldest brother of one of the parties in the arbitration proceedings?

-
Image
    Shubham Budhiraja [1] Two brothers running a family business in the form of a company and dispute arise between them and both decide to resolve through arbitration. During course of arbitration proceedings, one of party filed Section 14(2) r/w Section 15 Petition filed challenging mandate of arbitrator as being terminated because son of arbitrator is married to daughter of eldest brother of one of party and thus should be disqualified under Section 12(5) being ‘close family relationship’. The Hon’ble Delhi High Court declined the relief and held that neither the Seventh Schedule of the A&C Act nor the IBA Guidelines define the expression ‘close family relationship’. The plain language of Entry no. 9 indicates that it is not the legislative intent to render a distant relative of the parties to be ineligible for being appointed as an arbitrator, if both the parties so agree. It is not sufficient that the arbitrator is related to any one of the parties; the relationship must
Read more

ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE: THE UNFERTILE CROP

-
Image
ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE: THE UNFERTILE CROP SHUBHAM BUDHIRAJA [1] Digital images are no different from the droplets of rain that fall, merge, and then divide: there is no telling whether the droplets that split are identical to the droplets that came together to form the larger droplet [2] . INTRODUCTION Law may be divided into substantive and procedural laws. The laws by which rights, duties and liabilities are defined are called substantive law whereas laws which prescribe mode by which application of substantive law is regulated are called procedural law. Law of Evidence is a judicial recognition to the system of logical reasoning. The Indian Evidence act, 1872 is a bunch of 167 sections divided into 11 chapters and 3 parts. Part II, Chapter V is headed as “of Documentary Evidence” is of relevance for our discussion in this article. At the threshold, it is submitted that the proving of oral evidence are in contrast to the proving of documentary
Read more

REPUGANCY UNDER ARTICLE 254 & TEST OF VALIDATING LAW

-
Image
  Shubham Budhiraja [1] [1] Company Secretary, LLB Final Year,DU & Bcom (H) The land acquisition falls in concurrent list and parliament in year 2013 has introduced a new act which provides for rehabilitation, compensation and procedure on land acquisition of property. The State of T.N has made 3 different state laws w.r.t. land acquisition which was struck off by the High Court. Thereafter, state of TN in year 2019 enacted the same law but with president assent under Article 254 to avoid the repugnancy with 2013 act under Article 254. The appeal filed before apex court w.r.t. repugnancy of 2019 state law with 2013 central law & test of validating the struck off law. The Supreme Court observed as: VALIDATING A LAW WITH RETROSPECTIVE EFFECT Case Law Relevant Remarks National  Agricultural  Cooperative  Marketing  Federation  of India Ltd. & Anr. vs. Union of India & Ors, (2003) 5 SCC 23 The legislati
Read more