STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. LOMABHAI VASINGBHAI CHAVDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal is filed by the State of Gujarat and Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Vadodara, against the judgment and decree dated 22nd December 1995 passed in Regular Civil Suit No.391 of 1991 by Civil Judge (S.D.), Junagadh.

(2.) The plaintiff-respondent filed the suit aforesaid for declaration and permanent injunction and challenged the seniority list published on 30.1.1991. He also prayed for declaration that the said list may be declared to be null and void and inoperative. Prayer has also been made for direction to the defendants-appellants to prepare the seniority list after adopting the criteria of passing departmental examination in prescribed chances and the plaintiff-respondent may be assigned place in seniority accordingly in the seniority list. The plaintiff-respondent is a Government Officer of the Forest Department belonging to the category of Range Forest Officer. The suit of the plaintiff-respondent was decreed by the trial Court under the decree impugned in this Appeal and the operative part thereof reads as under:

(3.) A memorandum of Appeal which do not bear requisite and proper Court fee stamp prescribed therefor is not validly presented. Presentation of Appeal will not be a legal presentation if Court fees chargeable under the Court Fees Act are not paid at the time of presentation thereof. On the memo of Appeal, the appellants fixed the Court fee stamp of Rs.5/=. The learned counsel for the appellants does not dispute that this memo of Appeal is presented in this Court on deficit Court fee stamp. The deficit Court fees has been made good by appellants on 30th June 1998. In this Appeal, office has pointed out as many as nine objections, out of which two are material objections. I consider it to be appropriate to notice and reproduce the same in this judgment: Objection No.4: Proper and full Court fee is not paid on memo. Objection No.6: Beyond time by 775 days. Despite of grant of sufficient time when all the office objections were not removed the matter was placed before this Court.