D HEMACHANDRA SAGAR Vs. D PRITHVIRAJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS seemingly innocuous civil Revision Petition which at first impression appears to be an exercise of "much ado about nothing" with due apologies to Shakespeare, does in fact throw up issues of consequence in relation to the law relating suits by indigent persons. Prior to the amendment of the law, the expression used was suing in "forma pauperis" and at that time there were well defined limits which prescribed that only an absolute pauper whose total assets wearing apparel, pots and pans and earthly possessions aggregated in value less than rs. 500/- was alone entitled to the extension of the benefit of being exempted from the payment of ad valorem Court fees. The result of prescribing such an arbitrary unrealistic limit was that the benefits of the provision were totally excluded from a large number of genuine litigants who were economically within the strata of a person who is incapable of paying the Court fee and consequently, they were disqualified at the very threshold from approaching the Courts and seeking justice. The legislature brought about sweeping changes in the year 1976 and Order XXXIII of the CPC now amplifies an expanded definition which is set out in Rule-1 which is reproduced below : "suits may be instituted by indigent person Subject to the following provision, any suit may be instituted by an indigent person. Explanation I A person is an indigent person

(2.) THE law as it now stands prescribes that an enquiry is required to be conducted by the Court for purposes of ascertaining as to whether the applicant is an indigent person viz. , one who is not possessed of sufficient means to pay the Court fee as is prescribed. The first requirement of the law, therefore, is that the applicant has to estab-lish in realistic and correct terms as to what is the specific value of the subject matter of the suit and this aspect of the law assumes some importance. While there is a tendency while computing Court fees, to invariably try and undervalue the assets or the properties that are the subject matter of the dispute in order to get away by paying a lower court fee than the legitimate one; a Court cannot over-look the fact that in a case where the appli-cant desires to ask for exemption, the easi-est and the most mischievous strategy would be to grossly overvalue the properties, to set out some staggering and mind boggling fig-ure on which the ad valorem Court fee itself would be an astronomical amount and to then very conveniently sail through by point-ing out the physical impossibility of raising that amount of money. This precisely is the first head of rank dishonesty on the part of the plaintiffs who have indulged in kite-fly-ing and valued the assets at Rs. 267. 86 crores purely for purposes of hoodwinking the Court. No where has the figure of the court fee been set out something that is far from honest and sufficient to totally dis-qualify the plaintiffs. The Courts could eas-ily be mislead by this tactic because a Judge is always on guard against situations whereby there is under valuation and could easily be misled by the opposite. This is a facet of the law which has received very lit-tle or virtually no focus hitherto but it has come to light in the present proceeding and therefore, needs to be very carefully analysed and highlighted for the guidance of the Courts in this and other similar cases.

(3.) THE corollary to the aforesaid require-ment is that on the basis of the valuation the specific figure that represents the Court fee payable must be set out. A vague aver-ment to the effect that the Court fee payable is "very large", that it is "very high", that it runs into "lakhs of rupees" or "crores of ru-pees" as is averred in the present case and furthermore, that it is out of the reach of the applicant will not satisfy the requirements of law. The logical reason for this is because under the present definition of indigent per-son which is quite liberal, the Court is re-quired to decide on the crucial question as to whether the applicant has the capacity to pay the rightful Court fee. If in order to secure undue benefit under Order XXXIII the court fee is projected at a figure very much higher than what it in fact is, the Court will not be in a position to record a correct finding because, irrespective of what the opposite parties may point out, the Court is not obliged to compute the correct Court fee on its own because in the proceedings under order XXXIII CPC the entire onus is on the applicant-plaintiff. This hitherto overlooked aspect of the law is therefore very crucial and in a situation where the valuation appears to be unscientific, incorrect and unreliable, the only inevitable consequence would be that the application to sue as an indigent person will have to be dismissed on this ground alone because the very foundation of the application or rather its basic structure is itself flimsy, shaky and unreliable.