ABDUL MAJID Vs. ABDUL RASHID

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from an order under Section 6-A, Court fees Act demanding court-fees from the defendant in the following circumstances.

(2.) The plaintiff filed a suit for pre-emption. The defendants in their written statement pleaded that they had spent a sum of Rs. 6,500 in making improvements to the property and the plaintiff's suit for pre-emption should not be decreed without making the plaintiff liable for that amount. The Chief Inspector of Stamps reported that the defendants had made a counterclaim and should be made to pay ad valorem court fees on the sum of Rs. 6,500 which, the defendants had alleged, had been spent by them towards the improvements to the property. The learned Civil Judge accepted the report of the Chief Inspector of Stamps and held that the defendants were liable to pay ad valorem court-fees on the sum of Rs. 6,500 on the ground that the defendants had made a counter claim. An appeal against this order has been Bled by the defendant) under Section 6-A, Court-fees Act.

(3.) Reliance is placed on behalf of the defendant on a decision of a learned Single Judge of this Court reported in Haidri Begam v. Gulzar Bano, 12 A. L. J. 481: (36 ALL. 322). In that case the plaintiff had claimed possession of certain properties and the defendant had pleaded that she was in possession of the same in lieu of her dower debt and the plaintiff could not, therefore, get possession over the property without paying Rs. 80,000 to the defendant. The question then arose whether the defendant was liable to pay court-fees on the sum of Rs. 80,000 and it was held by the learned Judge, on a reference by the Taxing Officer, that the defendant was not liable to pay court-fees on Rs. 80,000.