UNION SAW MILLS Vs. N ARUNACHALAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE question that arises for determination in both these applications is the same, whether the court-fee payable on the plaint in each of these cases had to be calculated under the provisions of section 41(1) of the Madras Court-fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1955 (Act 14 of 1955), or under the provisions of the residuary section, section 50 of that Act. THE learned Subordinate Judge held that 41(1) provided the basis for the calculation of the court-fee payable on each of the plaints Bommanna Chettiar, the second defendant in O.S. No. 93 of 1957, and Abu Bucker, the first defendant in O.S. No. 21 of 1958 were income-tax assessees. For the arrears payable by them, certificates were issued to the Collector under section 46 of the Income-tax Act. To realise these arrears the Collector attached certain properties. Claims were preferred that these properties had ceased to be the properties of the assessees. THEse claims were allowed by the Collector, and the properties were released from attachment. THE Income-tax Department thereupon filed the two suits to set aside the summary orders passed by the Collector in the earlier proceedings, which resulted in the claims being allowed and the attachments being raised. On each of the plaints court-fee was paid by the Department as plaintiff under section 50 of the Madras Court-fees and Suits Valuation Act. Objection was taken to that by the Court-fee Examiner, and, as I have pointed out earlier, the learned Subordinate Judge held that court-fee was payable under section 41(1) of the Act Section 41(1) runs

(2.) THE suits were to set aside the orders passed on applications to set aside attachments. THE attachments were effected by the Collector, and the orders releasing them from attachment were passed by the Collector It was obviously in exercise of the powers vested in the Collector by the proviso to section 46(2) of the Income-tax Act that he passed the orders, the validity of which had been challenged in the suits. Section 46(2) provides for the recovery of the arrears of income-tax as an arrear of land revenue. THE proviso to section 46(2) runs

(3.) THE question now is whether the orders passed by the Collector, to avoid which the suits were filed, were orders passed by a civil or revenue court within the meaning of section 41(1) of the Madras Court-fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1955 THE expressions " civil court " and " revenue court " themselves have not been defined by the Act. But section 3(ii) defines "court"