WAHEEDA BEGUM Vs. MD.YAKUB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners filed O.S.No.450 of 2004 in the Court of X Additional Chief Judge, (F.T.C.), City Civil Court, Hyderabad for the relief of partition and separate possession of the suit schedule property. Obviously, because the petitioners are not in joint possession of the property, they paid the ad volerem court fee of Rs.1,80,026/ -. Nearly seven years after the filing of the suit, a docket order was passed on 04.02.2011 requiring the office to address a letter to the Joint Sub Registrar to furnish the valuation of the property as on 04.05.2004. In response to the same, the Joint Sub Registrar addressed a letter dated 31.03.2011 taking a view that the valuation of the property is Rs.19,800/ - per square yard. The trial Court passed an order on 28.07.2011 directing the petitioners to pay the deficit Court Fee. The same is challenged in this revision.

(2.) HEARD Sri Vedula Srinivas, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri Pratap Narayan Sanghi, learned Counsel for the respondents. Of -late, the Government is virtually treating the activity of registration as principal source of income and reduced the entire exercise into a commercial venture. Indiscriminate increase in the basic valuation with the sole objective of getting more and more stamp duty and registration fee has only added to inflation and shooting up of the prices. The Courts are also slowly falling into that very line.

(3.) THE whole exercise undertaken by the trial Court is untenable. Basically, it is for the Court to satisfy about the value of the suit, that too, when the suit was filed. It is not a matter of contest between the plaintiff and the defendant. The Court cannot take into account, the inconsistent figures furnished by the officials of the Registration department. The very fact that as many as three figures are furnished by the officials of the department discloses the method of their functioning. Instead of deprecating such a stand, the Court felt that it must obediently follow those figures. At this rate, there cannot be any finality. The respondents who got the letter from the department may manipulate another communication from a still higher authority. A Division Bench of this Court, in Satyanarayana Vs. Om Prakash and others1 held: