V SOMASUNDARAM Vs. NALINI SOMASUNDARAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN 1938 Somasundaram, the petitioner before me, married the respondent nalini, By 1953 the relationship between the two got very strained and in that year nalini filed O. P. No. 181 of 1953 on the file of the City Civil Court, Madras, for dissolution of her marriage with the petitioner Under Section 5 of Madras Act VI of 1949. On 28-11-1953 a decree was passed dissolving the marriage between the parties. Among other things, the court also directed that Somasundaram should pay Nalini Rs. 600 per month for her maintenance, the payment to continue so long as she remained unmarried In November 1956 Somasundaram filed O. S. No. 2090 of 1956 on the file of the City Civil Court, Madras, for setting aside that portion of the decree in O. P. No. 181 of 1953, which directed that he should pay nalini Es. 600 per month. That relief was sought for on the ground that Nalini had given birth to a child in November 1953, that Somasundaram could have had no access to her at any time when the child could have been begotten, that the child was the off-spring of adultery and that ihcse facts had been fraudulently concealed at the time when the O. P. No. 181 of 1953 was disposed of. The plaintiff valued the suit for the purpose of court-fee at Rs. 7200 that is to say on the amount payable for one whole year,

(2.) THE Court-fee Examiner took the view that the court-fee paid was insufficient. According to him the decree sought to be cancelled created in effect a life estate and the value of the decree should be ascertained and court-fee collected on that basis. Further a sum of Rs. 23,000/- was the amount of the maintenance payable from the date of the decree in O. P. No. 181 of 1953 upto the date of the filing of the present suit and hence court-fee should be paid on that amount. He submitted that on this computation the court-fee paid was short by Rs. 1192-8-0. The learned Judge in the City Civil Court agreed with the view of the court-fee examiner and called upon the petitioner to pay the additional court-fee. In this civil revision petition the correctness of this order is questioned.

(3.) THE direction that court-fee should be paid on the amount of Rs. 23000 may be disposed of on one short ground. Mr. Srinivasan, the learned advocate for the petitioner, stated that this amount has been already paid to Nalini and that he is not seeking to recover it back. If this is so no court-fee would naturally be payable on this amount. But the paragraph in the plaint which contains the prayer is not very clear on the matter. So subject to the plaint being amended in order to make it explicit that no relief is being asked for in respect of this amount of Rs. 23000, I direct that no court-fee need be paid on this amount.