RAKESH CHANDRA DAS Vs. KHAN BAHADUR ABDUL MAJID CHOUDHURY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a civil revision of 1972. It has shaken its dust and has reached, after having passed through various vicissitudes, the stage of final hearing. It is a pity that a matter which is otherwise not very complicated should have taken so long. Partly it seems it is due to the fact that there are a number of opposite parties and it took the petitioner a long time to get the notices duly served on all of them.

(2.) A suit for partition was filed by the petitioner claiming himself to be an assignee of 1/6th share in the property in question. He valued the suit for the purpose of jurisdiction at a total sum of Rs. 3,000/- of which the value for the suit land and houses was fixed at Rupees 2,500/-. The learned trial court had before it a Kabala showing sale of about 900 square cubits of land at Rupees 18,000/-. At this rate the value of the entire property came to around Rs. 50,000/-. The learned Munsiff felt that far the purpose of jurisdiction the suit must have been valued at that figure because of which he would cease to have jurisdiction. This has been upheld by the learned Assistant District Judge in appeal. The plaintiff has therefore filed this revision.

(3.) SO far as Section 7 (iv) is concerned, it is urged that that provision has left valuation for the purpose of court fee to be determined by the plaintiff in accordance with the amount at which the relief sought is valued in the plaint, Shri Das has referred me to a Division Bench decision of this Court in A.B. Singh v. State Bank of India, AIR 1979 Gau 27, which has dealt with this question in the context of Section 7(iv)(c) whereas we are concerned with Section 7(iv)(b). The Division Bench held that in a suit under Section 7 (iv) (c) the plaintiff is at liberty to value the suit at the amount at which he values the relief sought and the court has no power to interfere with the valuation of relief put by the plaintiff for the purpose of court fee. It is submitted by Shri Das that the same analogy or reasoning would apply to the valuation of the suits covered by Section 7 (iv) (b). In this context, the decision of their Lordships in the Supreme Court in Sathappa Chettiar v. Ramanathan, AIR 1958 SC 245, is very apposite as that had dealt with this question in the context of suit covered by Section 7(iv)(b). It was pointed out that the theoretical basis for allowing Court fee to be determined as per the relief valued by the plaintiff is that in such cases it is really difficult to value the claim with any precision or definiteness. This was illustrated by their Lordships by pointing out that in a suit for partition the version of the plaintiff's alleged undivided share in the joint family property into his separate property cannot be easily valued in terms of rupees. It was therefore pointed out that in suits falling under Section 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 fee payable in respect of the said relief.