AJIT SINGH Vs. ANANTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a revision against an order passed by the Additional District Judge at Jammu granting leave to the respondent to sue as a pauper under the provisions of 0.33 of the Civil P.C. The petitioner who is the defendant in the pauper suit has brought this revision challenging the correctness of the order of the court below according leave to the respondent to sue in form a pauperis.

(2.) A preliminary objection to the competence of the revision has been raised at the outset by the learned counsel for the respondent -plaintiff. He contended that the question whether a plaintiff ought to have paid court fee for instituting a suit or not is primarily the concern of the State to whose confers the court -fee paid by a litigant is to go and that it is not for a party to a suit to challenge the order of a court granting leave to sue in form pauperis. This view appears to me to be well -founded and is supported by the decisions in Kalimuthu V. Govindaswami, A.I.R. 1961 Madras 71 and Vasu V. Chakki Mani, A.I.R. 1962 Kerala 84.

(3.) IT is well settled that the question of court -fee is essentially a matter between a party and the State and not a matter inter -parties in the strict sense. Unless the question of court -fee involves a question of jurisdiction, I do not think an order regarding court -fee can properly be canvassed in a revision under S.115 of the Civil P.C. It is clear that the instant case does not involve any question of jurisdiction. Indeed it does not fall within the purview of any of the clauses of S.115. For this reason alone I should hold that the revision is incompetent.