- (1.) ON a reference by one of us sitting singly, this second appeal by the plaintiff in a suit for declaration and injunction comes up before this Bench for final disposal.
(2.) THE reference has been occasioned by an interesting, albeit, vexed question relating to the question of court-fees payable on the suit as well as the appeal under sec. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act (THE Indian Court Fees Act 1870 having been adapted for the relevant period to this State with certain modifications which are irrelevant for our purposes by the Rajasthan Court Fees (Adaptation Act) Ordinance, 1950 (No. 9 of 1950), which admittedly governs this case, and upon which question a rather sharp divergence of judicial opinion appears to exist in the various High Courts of our country. As, however, the entire case has been referred to this Bench, we propose to state the salient facts leading up to this appeal in so far as they are material for its final disposal. The plaintiff Daulatram held a monopoly contract for plying passenger and goods motor service for hire on the Ganganagar Hindumalkote route via Sadhowali from the princely State of Bikaner as it then was and which route fell within its territory, for a period of three years from the 1st January, 1947, to the 31st December, 1949, for Rs. 23,000/- payable per year (vide agreement Ex. A-9 ). It is common ground between the parties that the plaintiff paid the sum of Rs. 69,000/- to the Bikaner State for the aforesaid period. It is further admitted between the parties that this contract was later extended upto the 30th June, 1950, and there is no dispute as to this. Meanwhile certain important political changes had taken place. The State of Bikaner lost its independent existence and became part of the United State of Rajasthan in the beginning of April, 1 49, which in its turn became a part B State under the Constitution of India and which came into force on the 26th January, 1950. It is also not disputed that no fresh contract as such for the continuation of the monopoly in suit took place between the parties beyond the 30th June, 1950; the plaintiff contending, however, that the route in question had become open thenceforward and no longer remained his preserve while the defendant State maintained that the plaintiff did virtually enjoy the monopoly until the 31st March, 1951. See in this connection letter No. 477 dated 1st July, 1950 (Ex. A-I) from the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Bikaner, addressed to the Superintendent of Police, Ganganagar which is relied on by the State for the continuance of the monopoly in favour of the plaintiff upto the 31st March, 1951. By this letter, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, had, inter alia, asked the Superintendent of Police, Ganganagar, to submit an explanation why he had not reported in time the fact of the expiry of the monopoly contract and "for opening this to open competition without Government sanction". The Superintendent of Police thereupon passed an order that the plaintiff be informed of the situation that had arisen. Consequently it is alleged on behalf of the defendant but disputed on behalf of the plaintiff that the latter was informed of the resultant situation Orally suggesting thereby that the monopoly would continue until further orders and on the following day his representative Gopichand was asked to sign an endorsement in lieu of this intimation and according to the defendant State the monopoly came to an end on the 1st April, 1951. Earlier by his letter No. 6839, dated the 29th June, 1950 (Ex. A-10) the Superintendent of Police, Ganganagar, had informed the Deputy Inspector General of Police that the monopoly contract pertaining to the route in question as also to one other route namely Ganganagar to Padampur, with which we are not concerned, had come to an end and that that route had been thrown "for open competition and that an association of as many as 12 vehicle owners is working on this line" and further that "the same fate is likely to follow for the previous line i. e. Ganganagar to Hindumalkote". According to the plaintiff, other persons had also started plying their motor services for hire on the route in question with effect from the 1st July, 1950, and, in any case, his contention is that by virtue of Article 19 of the Constitution, any such monopoly had become illegal, void and inoperative after the commencement of the Constitution and could no longer be sustained in law. Even so, the defendant State demanded a sum of Rs. 23,000/- from the plaintiff for the alleged enjoyment of the monopoly by him on the route in question from the 1st July, 1950, to the 31st March, 1951, and on the plaintiff's refusal to pay the monopoly fee - the State resorted to a ' proceeding under the Land Revenue Act for the recovery of the amount from him. Consequently the plaintiff after giving the requisite notice under S. 80 C. P. C. instituted the present suit in the court of the Civil Judge, Ganganagar, on the 28th May, 1952, out of which this appeal arises, seeking a declaration that the plaintiff did not and could not hold a monopoly on the route in question from the 1st July, 1950, to the 31st March, 1951, and that the demand raised by the State against him for the payment of Rs. 23,000/- was unjustified and unlawful, and further seeking a permanent injunction restraining the defendant from taking any proceeding for the recovery of the said amount from him. The plaintiff valued his suit (and this is important to note) both for the purposes of court-fees and jurisdiction at a sum of Rs. 300/- only and paid the requisite court-fee thereon. The defendant State resisted the suit. Its main defence, omitting pleas which have no relevance at this stage, was that the plaintiff had actually enjoyed a monopoly on the route in question not only upto the 30th June, 1950, but also during the period extending from the 1st July, 1950, upto the 31st March, 1951, consequently he was liable to pay the sum of Rs. 23,000/- for the last-mentioned period. It was also contended that the court-fee paid by the plaintiff on his suit as on a valuation of Rs. 300/- was grossly inadequate and improper and that the proper valuation of the suit was Rs. 23,000/- and the plaintiff should have paid court-fee on the same amount and that being the proper value for purposes of jurisdiction as well, the suit was not triable by the Civil Judge in whose court it had been filed and who was competent to entertain suits upto the value of Rs. 10,000/- only. The trial court repelled this plea, but on the merits, it found that the plaintiff had actually enjoyed the monopoly for running passenger and goods motor service on hire for a period of nine months from the 1st July, 1950, upto the 31st March, 1951, and therefore he was bound to pay the proportionate amount of Rs. 17,250/- instead of the full amount of Rs. 23,000/- to the State and in this view of the matter partially decreed the plaintiff's suit to the extent mentioned above but dismissed it otherwise. The plaintiff went in appeal to the District Judge, Ganganagar, from the decision of the trial court but without success. Consequently he filed a second appeal to this Court. This was placed initially for disposal before a learned single Judge who has made the present peference because as already stated an important question as to the court-fees payable on the suit and the appeal was strongly debated before him and as a decision of that question was not free from difficulties in view of the acute diversity of judicial opinion on the point in our various High Courts. The question which thus emerges for decision in this appeal at its very threshold and which has led to the present reference is whether the court-fee paid by the plaintiff on his suit (and on appeal) was in accordance with law and whether the trial court had jurisdiction to entertain and decide it. Both parties are agreed on the point that the suit is governed by Article 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act, being a suit for declaration plus consequential relief. The point of divergence, however, is that according to the plaintiff, he had the option in law to put his own valuation on the suit as framed for purposes of court-fees under S. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act, and upon that depended the valuation of the suit for purposes of jurisdiction under Sec. 8 of the Suits Valuation Act and therefore the court-fee paid by him was perfectly lawful and adequate and the Civil Judge had jurisdiction to entertain and dispose of the suit, while according to the defendant State the plaintiff was not at liberty to put any arbitrary or capricious valuation on his suit, and it was and would be open to the court where an utterly inadequate valuation had been so put by him to ask him to make a proper valuation under O. 7, r. 11 C. P. C. and it would then be the duty of the plaintiff in such a case to put a proper valuation on his suit for purposes of court-fees, and if the suit on such valuation being put was not triable by the court in which it was filed, then that court must return it for presentation to the proper court. Putting the whole contention in plain language, the proper valuation of a suit like the present, according to the defendant State, was Rs. 23,000/- for purposes of court-fees as he desires to save himself from the liability to pay that amount to the State, and, that being so, this would also be the value of the suit for purposes of jurisdiction, in which case the suit was not at all triable by the court of the Civil Judge where it was filed, but it was triable by the district court, and hence the entire trial was vitiated. It is further contended in this connection that if the plaintiff did or even so do refuse to put a proper value on the relief claimed by him as directed by the court on the footing suggested above, then there would be no alternative but to reject the plaint under the same rule (O. 7, r. 11 (b) ). Now there appears to us to be a very sharp cleavage of judicial opinion on the point raised before us between the various High Courts in our country. On one side of the line and which favours the contention of the learned Deputy Government Advocate appearing for the State, our attention has been invited to : (1) Mt. Jageshra vs. Durga Prashad (AIR 1914 All. 72) (2) Inayat Hussain vs. Bashir Ahmad (AIR 1932 All. 413) (3) Mst. Bibi Umatul vs. Mst. Nangi Koer (11 CWN, 705) (4) Narayangunj Central Co-operative Society vs. Mafimuddin (AIR 1934 Cal. 448 - F. B.) (5) Motiram vs. Daulat (AIR 1939 Nag. 50 - F. B.) (6) Girrao vs. Shrikrishna (AIR 1957 Nag. 53) (7) Subedar Singh vs. Durga Singh (AIR 1948 Oudh 297) (8) Mt. Rupia vs. Bhatu Mathon (AIR 1944 Pat. 17 - F. B.) (9) Jadunandan Gope vs. Syed Najmuzzaman (AIR 1947 Pat. 560) (10) Badrilal vs. State of M. P. (AIR 1964 M. P. 9) (11) Idol Shri "shriji" vs. Chaturbhai (AIR 1965 M. P. 4) (12) Lakhomal Deepchand vs. Deepchand Tolaram (AIR 1937 Sind 241-FB) On the other side of the line, our attention has been invited to : (1) Jugal Kishore vs. Tale Singh (ILR IV All. 320 - FB) (2) Mt. Chhatarpall vs. Mt. Kalap Dei (AIR 1932 All. 114) (3) Hari Shanker Dutt vs. Kali Kumar Patra (ILR 32 Cal. 734) (4) In re Kalipada Mukharjee (AIR 1930 Cal. 655) (5) Barru vs. Lachman (AIR 1914 Lah. 214 - FB.) (6) Emperor vs. Rallaram (AIR 1946 Lah. 94 - FB.) (7) Chelasami Ramiah vs. Chelasami Ramasami (18 I. C. 363 - FB.) (8) Arunachalam vs. Rangasamy (AIR 1915 Mad. 948 - FB.) (9) Pappukkannu Anni vs. Theppayya (AIR 1952 Mad. 41) (10) Burjer vs. Nariman (AIR 1953 Bom. 382) (11) Chhetalal vs. Laxmidas (AIR 1959 Bom. 517) (12) Maung Nyi vs. Municipal Committee, Mandalay (AIR 1934 Rang. 268) (13) Shantamma vs. Lachiah (AIR 1955 Hyderabad, 23 - FB.) (14) Mt. Najab Sultan vs. Ram Kishan (AIR 1942 Peshawar 4) It will appear from the citation of these decisions that opinion has varied within the High Courts of Allahabad and Calcutta themselves and while the Nagpur, Patna and Madhya Pradesh High Courts and the Chief Court of Oudh and the Judicial Commissioner's court of Sind have more or less consistently taken the view pressed before us on behalf of the State, the High Courts of Madras, Bombay, Lahore, Rangoon, Hyderabad and the Judicial Commissioner's Court of Peshawar have with equal consistency taken the opposite view. It may as well be noted that so far as the Calcutta High Court is concerned, it has since made rules u/s. 9 of the Suits Valuation Act (and some other High Courts seem to have acted likewise) so that it has the power to determine the correct valuation of suits falling u/s. 7 (iv) (e) of the Court Fees Act where in its opinion the relief sought by the plaintiff in such a suit is grossly undervalued. See Nalini Nath vs. Radhashyam (15 ). (AIR. 1940 Cal. 482 ). There is no case of our own Court which has directly dealt with this divergence of opinion except that from a bench decision of this Court in Sukh Lal vs. Davi Lal (ILR 3 Raj. 782) to which one of us was a party, some support may perhaps be found for the view pressed before us on behalf of the plaintiff. Again, the only decision of the Supreme Court in which this question arose for consideration and to which the learned single Judge has referred in his order of reference is Sathappa Chettiar vs. Ramanathan Chettiar (A. I. R. 1958 S. G. 245), but their Lordships left the matter open with the observation that in the circumstances of the case it was not necessary for them to consider whether the plaintiff had under Sec. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act been given an absolute right or option to place any valuation whatever on the relief claimed by him. Our attention was also invited to two decisions of the Privy Council, both reported in the same volume of A. I. R. 1918 Privy Council - one at page 135 (Sunderbai vs. Collector of Belgaum) and the other at page 188 (R. Subrao vs. S. Venkatrao), and to these as well as to the decision of the Supreme Court cited above, we shall have occasion to refer in some detail hereafter. Now we j do not think that any useful purpose will be served by our discussing individually the various cases to which we have referred above, and we shall instead concentrate on the ratio decidendi of a few representative decisions on either side of the line and then we shall endeavour to formulate our own view on a balance of all the relevant considerations, But before we do so, we consider it necessary to read certain provisions of the various enactments concerned in so far as they have a bearing on the question raised before us. S. 7. "the amount of fee payable under this Act in the suits next hereinafter mentioned shall be computed as follows: (iv) In suits - (c) to obtain a declaratory decree or order, where consequential relief is prayed, according to the amount at which the relief sought is valued in the plaint or memorandum of appeal. In all such suits the plaintiff shall state the amount at which he values the relief sought. " For purposes of comparison, we may as well quote S. 7 (iii) and S. 7 (v) omitting its immaterial portion - (iii) In suits for movable property other than money, where the subject-matter has a market-value - according to such value at the date of presenting the plaint. (v) In suits for possession of land, houses and gardens - according to the value of the subject-matter: and such value shall be deemed to be. . . . . . . . . . . " Section 9 of the Suits Valuation Act - "where in suits other than those referred to in the Court Fees Act, 1870, S. 7 paragraphs V, VI, and IX. and paragraph X clause (d), courtfees are payable ad valorem under the Court Fees Act, 1870, the value as determinable for the computation of court-fees and the value for purposes of jurisdiction shall be the same. " Section 9 of the Suits Valuation Act - "when the subject-matter of suits of any class, other than suits, mentioned in the Court Fees Act 1870, S. 7, paragraphs v, and vi, and paragraph X, clauses (d), is such that in the opinion of the High Court it does not admit of being satisfactorily valued, the High Court may, with the previous sanction of the Local Government, direct that suits of that class shall, for the purposes of the Court Fees Act, 1870, and of this Act and any other enactment for the time eing in force, be treated as if their subjectmatter were of such value as the High Court thinks fit to specify in this behalf. " Order 7 r. 11 C. P. C.- "rejection of plaint - The plaint shall be rejected in the following cases - (b) Where the relief claimed is undervalued, and the plaintiff, on being required by the Court to correct the valuation within a time to be fixed by the Court, fails to do so; (c) Where the relief claimed is properly valued, but the plaint is written upon paper insufficiently stamped, and the plaintiff, on being required by the Court to supply the requisite stamp-paper within a time to be fixed by the Court, fails to do so. " We may state atonce that the law is well settled at this date that so far as suits under S. 7 (iv) (c) are concerned, the valuation fixed for purposes of court-fees must determine the valuation of the suit for purposes of jurisdiction also. That is the undoubted effect of reading S. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court-Fees Act and S. 8 of the Suits Valuation Act together. The value for court fees and the value for jurisdiction thus will be; the same in such case; but it must be remembered that it is the value for court-fees which is of basic importance, and it is upon this value that the value for jurisdiction must be founded. The view, therefore, which has found favour in some of the decided cases that the value fixed by the plaintiff for purposes of jurisdiction should be taken as or even as a satisfactory indication of the correct value for purposes of court-fees is not sound and cannot be accepted as correct. See Sathappa Chettiar vs. Ramanathan Chettiar (Supra ). The question, however, still remains as to whether the plaintiff has an unfettered option to fix whatever value he likes on a suit under S. 7 (iv) (c) howsoever arbitrary or capricious it might be; or, whether the court has jurisdiction to interfere with it where the value so fixed might be grossly inadequate or unreasonable and call upon the plaintiff to fix a proper valuation on the suit. As already stated, there is a rather sharp divergence of judicial opinion on this question, and it would indeed be a stupendous task and yet by no means profitable to deal with all the cases which have taken the one or the other view, a course which for that very reason we have felt dissuaded to embark upon. We shall, therefore, be content with inviting attention to a few representative cases for each of these views. As containing a forceful exposition of the latter view, we would refer to Must. Bibi Umatul Batul vs. Must. Nanji Koer (Supra) ; Narayangunj Central Co-operative Sale and Supply Society Ltd. vs. Mafizuddin (FB) (Supra) and Motiram vs. Daulal (FB) (Supra ). The ratio underlying these decisions may be summarised somewhat like this:
(3.) IT cannot be accepted that the Legislature could have ever intended to give the plaintiff unrestricted liberty to assign any arbitrary or capricious value he may choose to affix on his suit. For, in the first place, such a course is likely to deprive the Government of its legitimate revenue, and secondly, it would also give an unlimited choice to the plaintiff to bring his suit in a court of his choice with the consequential result that the powers of appeal however important the matter may be would be unduly limited. On this view, it is doubtless correct that under sec. 7 (iv) (c) the plaintiff at the outset is at liberty to put such valuation on the relief sought by him as he chooses, but such valuation cannot be accepted to be final or binding on the court or as the last word on the subject. Strong support is also derived in favour of this view from the language of O. 7, r. 11 C. P. C. which, inter alia, clearly permits the court where the relief claimed is undervalued to call upon the plaintiff to correct the valuation within a time to be fixed by it, and, where the plaintiff fails to do so, to reject the same. Therefore, it has been held that the two sets of provisions contained in the Court Fees Act and the Code of Civil Procedure should be read in a harmonious manner so as to permit the court to interfere with the value put on his relief by the plaintiff in a suit falling under S. 7 (iv) (c) where the valuation so put by him is grossly arbitrary or unreasonable, or where it may not be in accordance with any rules formed under S. 9 of the Suits Valuation Act. It may, however, be noted that even the catena of cases which have adopted this view do recognise that, speaking as a rule, it is not easy to assign any precise monetary value to suits falling under S. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act, and that a court should not take upon itself the task of correcting the plaintiff's valuation except in a most, flagrant case where the plaintiff has grossly undervalued his case and which value bears no relation to the value of the right litigated. It also seems to have been accepted by and large in some of these cases that the correct test for valuing suits of the type under discussion is not the value of the thing affected, but it is the value of the relief sought which has to be determined,and that if it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to state what that value is, then such value has to be a national one and the plaintiff is obviously the competent person to fix it, though it is again observed that even where the value is uncertain but it is manifestly great, the plaintiff cannot be allowed to have a final say in the matter and fix any value he likes particularly when the court says, as and where it can, that it is unreasonable or absurd. It is further important to point out, while summarising this view, that its exponents have sought support for it on the past history of sec. 7 of the Court Fees Act which as originally enacted contained words therein which preserved the court's power in this behalf which words have since been omitted from there and have instead been incorporated in order 7, rule 11 C P. C. , and, therefore, it is argued that although the plaintiff is required to state the amount at which he values the relief sought, it is not any kind of value that he is free to state but he must fix it truly or more or less accurately, and so although the value fixed by the plaintiff on the relief sought by him would prima facie control the amount of court-fee and would also control the jurisdiction, still it is a value which is not final nor binding on the Court; and therefore where an objection is raised before the court that such valuation is wholly arbitrary and unreasonable, the court has the power to demand and compel its correction, failing which it can and should reject the plaint in an appropriate case. On the other hand, it has been equally emphatically upheld in the cases taking the contrary view that the language of sec. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act is clear and unambiguous particularly having regard to the scheme of the provisions which precede and follow it (See sec. 7 (iii) and (v)) and which provisions speaking broadly require suits falling thereunder to be valued for purposes of court-fees according to the market value of the property involved as contradistinguished from suits falling under sec. 7 (iv) in which case it is laid down that such suits shall be valued for this purpose according to the amount at which the relief sought is valued in the plaint or memorandum of appeal, and further that in such suits, the plaintiff shall state the amount at which he values the relief sought. It is further pointed out that the Legislature in its wisdom has deliberately devised this pattern of valuation for suits falling under sec. 7 (iv) for the simple reasons that it is extremely difficult, nay, in some cases impossible, to put a precise monetary value on such suits except ofcourse when the High Court has, with the previous sanction of the Local Government, framed any rules in this connection under sec. 9 of the Suits Valuation Act. The argument put forward in favour of the opposite view from the previous history of S. 7 of the Court Fees Act is answered by saying that an occasion for such an interpretative effort can properly arise only where the meaning of a particular provision of law may not be clear and is open to doubt but not otherwise: Absolute sentential expositor non indiget. Indeed, it is pointed out that when once the meaning of the provision is plain according to the natural meaning of the words in which it is couched, it is not the province of a court of law to scan its wisdom or its policy. The duty of the court is not to make the law reasonable according to its own notions of reasonableness but to expound it as it stands according to the plain meaning of the words used, and that when the words admit of but one meaning, taken in their natural or grammatical sense, a court need not and indeed ought not to speculate on the intention of the Legislature or to construe the provision according to its own notions of what ought to have been enacted. The Judges should not forget that their office is jus dicere and not jus dare. It has, therefore, been held that sec. 7 (iv) (c) must be interpreted as it stands, and that so interpreted, it can only mean that for the purposes of the Court Fees Act, the plaintiff has an unfettered choice to value the relief sought by him at any amount which he thinks fit. This would ofcourse be subject to any rules which may have been made by the High Court under sec. 9 of the Suits Valuation Act. This view has received its powerful exposition, if we may say so with all respect, in Barru vs. Lachman (supra) and In re Kalipada Mukherjee (supra) (which did not receive the approval of the Full Bench decisions of the Calcutta High Court in Narayan-gunj Central Co-operative Society vs. Mufizuddin (supra) and Burjor vs. Nariman (Supra ). The question with which we are faced is which of these two views is correct. For ourselves, we have no hesitation in confessing that the answer to this question is not free from considerable difficulty. And here we cannot resist the temptation of quoting Stone C J in Motiram vs. Daulat (Supra) where he expressed himself as follows: - "unfortunately, owing to the conflict of judicial opinion in considering this question, precedent and authority are of very little assistance for the cases disclose admirable reasons leading to conflicting results. It can hardly be doubted however that it is not desirable to permit a litigant to place fanciful values on his suit and thereby not merely deprive "government of revenue but also get an important action in a court of limited jurisdiction with the consequential result that the powers of appeal, however important the matter may be, will be strictly limited. On the other hand, undoubtedly, one is here construing a statute which imposes a pecuniary obligation upon a subject and which should therefore be construed strictly, and one is concerned with a type of suit the value of which is uncertain and consequently about which opinions can differ. " (The italic is ours) Taking. our stand on these observations, with all respect, we have on the whole definitely felt persuaded to come to a conclusion quite the opposite of that to which the learned Chief Justice came. We shall briefly indicate our reasons now why we have felt impelled to do so. As we read Sec. 7 (iv) (c) of the Court Fees Act, we think that its language is plain and unambiguous enough and as it stands, it permits, or leaves an option to, the plaintiff to put his own valuation on a suit falling under S. 7 (iv) (c) as indeed in the case of a suit under other clauses of sec. 7 (iv ). The reason why the Legislature did so seems to us to be equally plain and that is that suits properly falling thereunder do not as a rule admit of a definite or precise valuation in terms 01 money. We should also like to point out that, if that was not so, there was nothing to induce the Legislature from casting sec. 7 (iv) in a different mould from, for example sec. 7 (iii) or sec. 7 (v) of the Court Fees Act whereunder court-fee is required to be paid on the market value of the subject-matter of the suit. We wish with respect to reproduce the following observation from the judgment of the supreme Court in Sathappa Chettiar vs. Ramanathan Chettiar (Supra) at page 251 of the report which are highly germane to the point we desire to make - "if the scheme laid down for the computation of fees payable in suits covered by the several sub-sections of sec. 7 is considered, it would be clear that, in respect of suits falling under sub-s. (iv), a departure has been made and liberty has been given to the plaintiff to value his claim for the purposes of court-fees. The theoretical basis of this provision appears to be that in cases in which the plaintiff is given the option to value his claim, it is really difficult to value the claim with any precision or definiteness. . . . . . . . . Now it would be clear that the conversion of the plaintiff's alleged undivided share in the joint family property into his separate share cannot be easily valued in terms of rupees with any precision or definiteness. That is why legislature has left it to the option of the plaintiff to value his claim for the payment of court-fees. " Their Lordships, however, did not stop there but proceeded to observe further "it really means that in suits falling under sec. 7 (iv) (b) the amount stated by the plaintiff as the value of his claim for partition has ordinarily to be accepted by the court in computing the court - fees payable in respect of the said relief. In the circumstances of this case it is unnecessary to consider whether, under the provisions of this section, the plaintiff has been given an absolute right or opinion to place any valuation whatever on his relief. " (The italic is ours ). We may point out at this juncture, if we may do so with all respect, that in the suit for partition before their Lordships,, the plaintiff had given the value of this share at 15 Lakh rupees and he had eventually sought permission to amend his plaint by fixing its valuation at Rs. 50,000/- which was obviously far less than the value stated by the plaintiff of his own share of the properties involved. It seems to us, therefore, that although their Lordships were not prepared to make any definite pronouncement on the question whether the plaintiff had an absolute right or option to place any valuation on his relief in a suit under sec. 7 (iv) (c), their Lordships were inclined to take a liberal view favouring the plaintiff in this regard which they need not have taken if they were inclined to the contrary view because this was if we may say so with utmost respect an obvious case of clear undervalue. ;