KUNHANNA SHETTY Vs. CECILIA CRASTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Defendant No.1 in O.S.826/2012 on the file of the learned III Additional Civil Judge and JMFC, Mangaluru, Dakshina Kannada (hereinafter referred to as 'the trial Court' for brevity), is impugning the order dtd. 19/10/2017 passed on preliminary issue No.4 holding that the suit of the plaintiffs is properly valued for the purpose of Court fee and jurisdiction.

(2.) Heard Sri Vijaya Krihna Bhat M., learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri M. Sudhakar Pai, learned counsel for the respondents. Perused the materials on record.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the plaintiffs filed the suit for declaration that the sale deed is fraudulent one, not binding on the plaintiffs and for a direction to the Sub Registrar to delete the entry with regard to the said sale deed and further for permanent injunction. In fact, the Court fee that is required to be paid is under Sec. 24(b) of the Karnataka Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act ('the Act' for short), taking into consideration the market value of the property in question. But the plaintiffs valued it under Sec. 24(d) of the Act for declaration that the sale deed is not binding on them and valued the permanent injunction separately under Sec. 24(c) of the Act. But they have not paid any Court fee to seek direction to the Sub Registrar to delete the entry with regard to the sale deed. Under such circumstances, the trial Court committed an error in answering preliminary issue No.4 in the affirmative. Accordingly, he prays for allowing the petition by setting aside the impugned order.