HYDROSE Vs. MAKKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SUBORDINATE Judge, Ernakulam There the first defendant filed I. A. 1085/1981 accompanied by an affidavit stating that the court fee paid is insufficient; and requesting the court to raise an additional issue on court fee Thereafter an additional issue on court fee as Issue No. 7 was raised and that was heard as a preliminary issue.

(2.) THE trial court after hearing both sides accepted the version given by the plaintiff and held that the court fee paid is sufficient.

(3.) NONE of the points raised is sufficient to interfere with the order under attack in exercise of Revisional Jurisdiction. This apart, this revision could have been dismissed on a short point that the decision under attack does not relate to the jurisdiction of the court. When the decision under attack does not relate to the jurisdiction, even if the decision is wrong, it is not proper for this Court to interfere with the decision in exercise of revisional jurisdiction The law in this respect has been authoritatively pronounced by the Supreme Court in Ratnavarmaraja v. Smt. Vimala (AIR 1961 S. C. 1299 =1961 KLT. (S C.) 67), where it was held that whether proper court fee is paid on a plaint is primarily a question between the plaintiff and the State; that the jurisdiction in revision exercised by the High Court under S. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure is strictly conditioned by clauses (a) to (c) thereof; that the defendant who may believe and even honestly, that proper court fee has not been paid by the plaintiff has still no right to move the superior courts by appeal or in revision against the order adjudging payment of court fee payable on the plaint. It was further observed that the court Fees Act was enacted to collect revenue for the benefit of the State and not to arm a defendant with a weapon of technicality or defence to obstruct the progress or a suit or the trial of an action and that by recognising that the defendant was entitled to contest the valuation of the properties in dispute as if it were a matter in issue between him and the plaintiff and by entertaining petitions preferred by the defendant to the High Court in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction against the order adjudging court fee payable on the plaint, all progress in the suit for the trial of the dispute on the merits will be effectively frustrated.