Rajan Roy, J. - (1.) Heard Shri Sudeep Seth, learned counsel for the petitioners, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State and Shri Prashand Singh Gaur, learned counsel for the opposite party no. 3. This is a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India seeking the following relief:- "Wherefore it is most respectfully prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to quash/set aside the impugned order dated 28-1-2014 passed by the Opposite Party No. 1 on application for return of court fees dated 25-1-2014 (C-73) preferred by Opposite Party No. 3 in R.S. No. 35 of 2009 (Rakesh Kumar Gupta v. Ravinder Kumar Gupta and others) (as contained in Annexure No.1 to the writ petition). Further, the Opposite Party No. 2 may be directed to return the used impressed court fees of Rs.1,34,708/- to the Opposite Party No. 1 for being consigned to the record room in R.S. No. 35 of 2009 (Rakesh Kumar Gupta v. Ravinder Kumar Gupta) or to the State Government, the Opposite Party No. 5. The Petition may be allowed with cost throughout."
(2.) The facts of case in brief are that the opposite party no. 3 filed a suit for declaration and paid requisite court-fee thereon. However, subsequently he amended the plaint so as to add a relief claiming possession of the property in question. The said amendment was allowed on 07.09.2012 and consequent to the amendment valuation of the suit got enhanced, therefore, additional court-fee was payable for which steps were ordered to be taken till 06.11.2012. Several dates were fixed, but, the additional court fee was not paid. In these circumstances, an application under Order 7, Rule 11 read with 151 C.P.C. was filed by the petitioners for rejection of the plaint on 27.11.2012. In the meantime i.e. till pendency of this application the opposite party no. 3 herein submitted an application on 24.04.2013 along with the additional court-fee required amounting to Rs. 1,34,710/- in addition to court-fee of Rs. 700 already paid and requested for acceptance of the same. This application was numbered as C-62, whereas, the application of the petitioners under Order 7, Rule 11 was numbered as C-57. Both the applications were considered and decided by the Court of Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division), Lucknow vide order dated 17.07.2013. The application for acceptance of court-fee was allowed, subject to payment of cost of Rs. 500/- and considering the fact that the additional court-fee had now been paid, and the matter should now be decided on merits, the application No. C-57 was disposed of accordingly without consideration on merits. This led to the filing of a Civil Revision under Section 115 C.P.C. before the High Court at its Lucknow Bench bearing Civil Revision No. 103 of 2013, by the petitioners herein, challenging the order of the Civil Court dated 17.07.2013. The said revision was allowed by this Court vide judgment dated 05.10.2013 on the ground that the Civil Court had erred in not deciding the application under Order 7, Rule 11 C.P.C. on merits merely on the ground that the court-fee had been deposited by the plaintiff in the interregnum. The High Court opined that the said application for depositing of court-fee should not have been allowed without recording any reasons regarding the satisfaction as required under the proviso to Order 7, Rule 11 C.P.C. The order dated 17.07.2013 was set-aside. The matter was remanded back to the trial Court to decide the application No. C-57 afresh on merits in accordance with law with the observation that in case the learned trial Court feels proper, it may grant time to the respondents-plaintiff for showing the cause of exceptional nature which had prevented them from depositing or supplying the requisite court-fee within the time provided by the Court.
(3.) On a perusal of the judgment dated 05.10.2013 it is evident that the order dated 17.07.2013 disposing of the two applications No. C-57 and C-62 was set-aside, meaning thereby, both the applications stood revived, therefore, even though this Court in its order directed for deciding the application No. C-57, the disposal afresh of the application No. C-62 was implied in it, as, both the applications were interlinked and the contention of Shri Sudeep Seth, learned counsel for the petitioners in this regard that the order dated 17.07.2013 accepting the court-fee on the application no. C-62 remained unaffected, is not acceptable as would be evident from the observation contained in Para 52 of the said judgment to the effect that the learned trial Court should not have allowed the application of the respondent-plaintiff to deposit the court-fee without recording any reason and satisfaction required under the proviso appended to Rule 11 Order 7 C.P.C., therefore, the application No. C-62 was also to be considered again, obviously so, otherwise it would lead to an incongruous and incompatible situation. Therefore, the application in suit bearing Regular Suit No. 35 of 2009 was considered and the plaint of the opposite party no. 3-plaintiff was rejected on the ground of non compliance of the order dated 06.11.2012 for depositing requisite fee within time. Thus, application No. C-57 stood allowed and impliedly application no. C-62 for accepting the court-fee stood rejected. This order dated 20.12.2013 can not be read and understood to mean that while additional court-fee deposited by means of application dated 24.04.2013 with a prayer for accepting the same stood allowed the application under Order 7, Rule 11 C.P.C. for non depositing of additional court-fee was also allowed and the plaint was rejected on the ground of non deposit of such additional court-fee, as, on the face of it, it would be incongruous.;