RACHAKONDA NAGARATHNAM Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition filed by Mr. M. Seshachalapathi, under Section 151, Civil P. C., for a direction to refund the court-fee of Rs. 149-15-0 paid by the petitioner, Nagaratnam, in an unnumbered Second Appeal, S. R. No. 40609 of 1948, sought to be presented to this Court against A. S. No. 310 of 1947 on the file of the Sub-Court, Guntur. The facts are briefly these. Nagaratnam, Mr. Seshachalapati's client, wanted to file a second appeal against the judgment and decree in A. S. No. 310 of 1947, and, therefore, filed S. R. No. 40609 of 1948, with the correct court-fee of Rs. 149-15-0, due on the valuation given therein, on 22nd November 1948. That S. R. was returned to the petitioner on 10th February 1949 for the lodgment schedule receipt for Rs. 25 in two days. Nagaratnam did not file the lodgment schedule receipt at all. Instead, she negotiated with the other side, compromised with him, and settled the matter. She re-presented S. R. No. 40609 of 1948 only on 3rd August 1949 and with a petition claiming a refund certificate for the court-fee paid by her as she had already settled the matter.

(2.) The question, therefore, is whether this Court should grant her a refund certificate for Rs. 149-15-0, the court fee paid on the appeal memorandum, or whether it should refuse the petition altogether, or grant any other relief possible under Section 151, Civil P. C.

(3.) It has been held in Thammayya Naidu v. Venkataramanamma, 55 Mad. 641 at p. 644 : (A. I. R. (19) 1932 Mad. 438) that a Court's power to allow the refund of court-fee stamps is not confined in Sections 13, 14 and 15, Court-fees Act, and that, under Section 151, Civil P. C., it has got some more though strictly limited, powers. In re Chidambaram Chettiar, 57 Mad. 1028 : (A. I. R. (21) 1934 Mad. 566), a later case, we see what these powers under Section 151 are. It has been held there that a Court can order refund of the court-fees, under Section 151, where there is an excess payment made by mistake or where on account of the mistake of the Court a party has been compelled to pay court-fees either wholly or in part. It was definitely held in that case that, outside these cases, a Court had no power to order refund, under Section 151. In C. M. P. Nos. 4439 to 4442 of 1941 (unreported) Leach C. J. and Happell J. in four petitions almost identical in nature with the present one, for the exercise of the inherent power of the Court, under Section 151, Civil P. C., to refund the court-fees paid in certain appeal memoranda, not numbered as appeals because of the reluctance to pay the deficit court-fee rightly demanded, have remarked that there is no provision in the Court-fees Act, on which the petitioners could rely for a refund of the court-fee paid on the appeal memoranda filed by them and withdrawn by them before numbering. They went on to say: