ITTIYATHI GOVINDAN Vs. REV FR JOSEPH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The point raised on this revision is whether where a court while giving a decree to the plaintiff directs that unless the additional court fee leviable on the plaint is remitted within a period specified the suit shall stand dismissed, can after expiry of the said period extend the time for payment. The view that commends itself to us is that with the expiration of the period the order will work itself out with the result that the suit will stand dismissed and that there will be no pending proceeding before the court for it to extend the time for payment of the court fee. Learned counsel for the petitioner invited our attention to certain decisions which hold that except in cases contemplated by the specific provisions of the Court Fees Act the court is not competent to direct additional court fee to be paid and that where dehors the said Act the court directs payment of additional court fee with the penalty by way of dismissal of suit attached for non payment, that provision can well be ignored and further proceedings in the litigation proceeded with as if there is no such direction at all. We regret we cannot subscribe to this view. A court has jurisdiction to decide a cause before it rightly as well as wrongly and if the decision happens to go wrong it is not open to the parties or to the court itself to ignore a part of the decision and give effect to the rest thereof. The party aggrieved by the wrong decision must take appropriate steps to vacate the decision and cannot be allowed to ignore it. It cannot be said that the lower court had no jurisdiction to dismiss the redemption suit before it. It may well be that the ground of the dismissal is wrong, but there is a remedy provided by way of review of the judgment or appeal to rectify the error. In this particular cases even a second suit for redemption will not be barred. Counsel for the petitioner conceded that S.148, Civil Procedure Code had no application to the case, but his contention was that the lower court, should have invoked its inherent powers to set right the error. In the first place it was not pointed out to the lower court that it was in error in directing that unless the additional court fee demanded was paid the suit will stand dismissed. What that court was asked to do was to extend the time for payment after the order had worked itself out resulting in the dismissal of the suit. Further, in a matter where the Code contains specific provisions to set right the error (if be an error) and the aggrieved party has other remedies open to him we do not think this to be a proper case for the exercise of the inherent powers of the court. The revision is accordingly dismissed but in the circumstances without costs. Order accordingly.