USHA BADRI POONAWALLA Vs. K KURIAN BABU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE, returnable forthwith. Respondent waives service. By consent taken up for hearing and final disposal.

(2.) THE petitioner has filed a suit in the Court of the learned Civil Judge, Senior Division, Pune, being Special Civil Suit No. 915 of 1998 in which, based on the allegation that the defendant had defamed her, in a communication addressed to a fellow member of the Rotary Club, Pune, the petitioner has claimed damages in the amount of Rs. 50 lakhs. An application was moved by the defendant claiming that the suit was liable to be dismissed for want of payment of the requisite Court fee. By the impugned order dated 17th April, 2001, the learned Joint Civil Judge, Senior Division, Pune has directed the petitioner to pay the Court fee on the claim of Rs. 50 lakhs.

(3.) THE dispute in the present case turns upon the construction of the notification dated 1st October, 1994 issued by the State Government in exercise of the power conferred by section 46 of the Bombay Court Fees Act, 1959. The relevant part thereof reads as follows : now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 46 of the Bombay Court Fees Act, 1959 (Bom. XXX I of 1959) the Government of Maharashtra hereby remits the fees payable by women litigants on any of the plaints, applications, petitions, memorandum of appeals on any other documents specified in the First and Second Schedules to the Bombay Court Fees Act to be filed in any Civil Family or Criminal Courts in respect of cases relating to- (a) Maintenance; (b) Property disputes; (c) Violence and (d) Divorce. " a similar question arose before a learned Single Judge of this Court (Sanjay Mahavirprasad Jain v. Vrishali Sanjay Jain), 1997 (4) Bom. C. R. 299 : 1997 (2) Mh. L. J. 261. In that case the husband had filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights under section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Apart from filing her reply to the application, the respondent-wife denied that she had ever been married to the petitioner. The respondent sought to file a counter claim as and by way of damages in the amount of Rs. 5 lakhs claiming that the petitioner had destroyed her reputation by publishing a false advertisement in the newspapers and as a result of which she was exposed to mental torture, and whereby her reputation was ruined. Before the learned Judge, an objection was raised on the ground that the Court fee had not been paid on the counter claim as required under the Bombay Court Fees Act, 1959, and on behalf of the respondent, reliance was sought to be placed on the exemption notification dated 1st October, 1994. The learned Single Judge adverted to the language of the notification under which the payment of Court fee was exempted in respect of cases "relating to" maintenance, property disputes, violence and divorce. The learned Single Judge held that the words "relating to" were words of amplitude. As a result, the exemption would not be limited strictly to cases of maintenance, property disputes, violence or divorce, but even cases relating to the aforesaid four subjects would be within the purview of the notification. Similarly while dealing with the expression "cases of violence", the learned Single Judge held that violence against women is of many kinds, including physical violence, mental violence, sexual violence, and social violence. The intention of the legislature in exempting women from the payment of Court fees in relation to such cases and the object of the notification was to remove the impediment in the way of women litigants to seek justice, social, economic and political, as enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution. The cases where women litigants could claim such an exemption would be very many and could not be exhaustively defined. In para 8 of the judgment, the learned Single Judge held thus: