SPARTAN ELECTRICALS Vs. SHASHIKANT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition is directed against order dated 20.12.1991 extending the time for payment of Court fee under Sec. 149 C.P.C./money suit No.1 -B of 1992 was registered in the Court of IVth Addl. Judge to the Court of District Judge, Indore. The short relevant fact are that the respondent filed M. J. C. No. 15 of 1988 which was an application dated 13.6.1988 to sue as an indigent person under Order 33, Rule 1 CPC on the assertion that the Court fee which was liable to be paid amounting to Rs. 11,000/ - was beyond the means of the plaintiff. The petition was contested by the petitioners on the ground that the plaintiff was not entitled to sue as an indigent person as he has sufficient means to pay the Court fee, while the matter was still pending enquiry and the case was set down for evidence of the plaintiff to establish his claim to sue as an indigent person, the plaintiff filed an application on 8.10.1991 that he having since come in possession of sufficient property was willing to pay the court fee of Rs. 11,060/ - and that he be permitted to make the payment. The Court below extended the time under S. 149 CPC and allowed the plaintiff to pay the requisite Court fee, which the plaintiff did on the very date when the application under S. 149 CPC was filed (i.e. 8.10.1991); and the M.J.C. was converted into a regular Money Suit.

(2.) THE petitioners thereafter moved an application that the extension of time under section 149 CPC and the permission to the plaintiff to pay court fee and the acceptance thereof on being paid were illegal and ought not to have been made. That application having been rejected, the present petition has been filed.

(3.) THIS application is, therefore, dismissed but there shall be no order as to costs, as it may well be said that the petitioners may have some justification to challenge the good faith of the plaintiff. Shri Sethi, learned counsel for the petitioners, however, was fair enough not to insist upon this technicality. AIR 1953 SC 431 followed.