HEMANT GUPTA.J. - (1.) THE defendants are in revision petition aggrieved against the order passed by the learned trial Court whereby the plaintiff was required to pay Court fee on the ten times value of the land revenue in respect of the land in dispute.
(2.) THE plaintiff-respondents have filed a suit for declaration claiming that they are owners in possession in equal shares of the land in dispute measuring 17 kanals 12 marlas and that the sale deed dated 24.6.1999 executed by defendant No. 6 in favour of defendant Nos. 1 to 5 is illegal, null and result of fraud etc. The said declaration was sought on the ground that the land in dispute is ancestral and that the same has been sold by defendant No. 6 without any legal necessity and consideration. Learned trial Court vide the impugned order decided the application filed by the defendant-petitioners for directing the plaintiffs to pay requisite ad valorem court fee on the value of the sale deed. The learned trial Court, after examining the respective contentions of the parties, found that where documents sought to be avoided in respect of agricultural land are subject to the land revenue then the ad valorem court fee is payable not on the value of the property but on value which is ten times of the land revenue.
(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioners has vehemently argued that since the plaintiff has challenged the sale deed allegedly executed of the joint Hindu family property and, therefore, the plaintiff is deemed to be party to the such sale deed. Therefore, the plaintiff is liable to pay ad valorem court fee in terms of provisions of Scheduled I Article I of the Court Fee Act, 1870 Reference was made to a Full Bench judgment of this Court in Niranjan Kaur v. Nirbigan Kaur, 1982 PLR 127.;