KOGANTI SUJANI Vs. VISSAMSETTI SANKAR BABU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition has been preferred by the fourth defendant in o. S. No. 30 of 2002 on the file of the Additional Senior Civil Judge, Tenali, guntur District.

(2.) THE plaintiff filed the suit for declaration that he is the absolute owner of 1/3rd share in the plaint schedule property, for perpetual injunction, mandatory injunction and other reliefs. The suit was numbered by accepting the value of the property and the Court fee was paid. Five years after the filing of the suit, the fourth defendant filed I. A. No. 278 of 2007 under Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure praying to direct the plaintiff to pay deficit Court fee on the ground that the plaintiff has admitted in an application for amendment of the plaint that the property is worth more than one crore rupees. The suit was filed in 2002 and amendment petition was filed in 2006, that is four years after filing the suit mentioning that the property covered by item no. 1 fetches more than one crore rupees. Para 8-A was added to the plaint as per amendment order in I. A. No. 1009 of 2006 dated 30-10-2006. In that para the relevant portion reads that Item No. 1 of the plaint schedule property is worth more than a crore of rupees, but it is shown that it was sold for a paltry sum of Rs. 13,00,000/ -. On the basis of this averment, the fourth defendant filed the present application by contending that as the plaintiff stated in para 8. A. of the plaint that the value of item No. 1 of the plaint schedule property is more than one crore rupees, the plaintiff has to pay Court fee on the said value as per the Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, therefore a direction has to be given to the plaintiff to pay the deficit Court fee on the value of the property.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the plaintiff contended that the plaintiff adopted the value of the property on the basis of a certificate issued by the Sub registrar and after verification of the above certificate and the nature of the property, the Court accepted the value and accordingly requisite Court fee was paid and the suit was numbered by the Court. He further contended that the defendant has no business to question the value of the suit property five years after filing of the suit and the value adopted by the plaintiff is correct. He further submitted that the value of the property as on the date of filing of the suit was correctly depicted, but subsequently the prices might have gone up, therefore, the plaintiff mentioned in the amended portion of the plaint that the property would fetch more than one crore rupees. Since there is no other basis to assess the value of the property as on the date of filing of the suit, the lower Court accepted the valuation given by the Registrar.