GAURI SHANKAR MANSARIA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I shall dispose of these six civil revision petitions by a common judgment as a common point of law arises for consideration in these petitions.

(2.) These petitions arise out of suits for declaring certain assessment orders passed by the Income-tax Officer as illegal and void. A Division Bench of this Court in Gauri Shankar Mansaria v. Union of India (AIR 1971 Pat 362) in a civil revision petition arising out of a similar matter as in these cases directed the petitioner to amend the valuation of the plaint. Earlier the plaintiff valued the suits on the basis of the amounts mentioned in the assessment orders, and he also valued the suit at Rs. 100 for the purpose of injunction. The Division Bench, in the abovementioned case, held that in view of Section 8 of the Suits Valuation Act, the plaintiff is required to mention one valuation for the purpose of jurisdiction of the court. It is relevant at this stage to quote Section 8 of the Suits Valuation Act which reads as under :--

(3.) In my opinion, the court erred in law as well as in jurisdiction in not allowing the plaintiff to amend the plaints. When this Court directed in the earlier civil revision petition reported in AIR 1971 Pat 362 to allow the plaintiff to amend the valuation of the plaint, the trial court had no jurisdiction to set aside the amendment of the plaint. The Division Bench of this High Court held that the plaintiff had to value the suit under Section 7 (iv) of the Act. At the end of Section 7 (iv) of the Act, it is mentioned as follows :