ARNAVAZ HORMUSJI MAJOR Vs. HORMUSJL FRAMJI MAJOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application by defendant No. 1 to review a taxation.

(2.) The suit was a matrimonial suit under the Parsi Matrimonial Act, being the wife's petition for dissolution, her husband being defendant No. 1. A decree by consent was passed dismissing the suit. Nothing was said in the decree about costs. At the time when the order for dismissal wan made, the parties, however, had come to an agreement with one another for a judicial separation. One of the terms of that agreement was that the defendant was to pay the plaintiff's attorneys her costs of the suit taxed as between attorney and client on the Original Side scale.

(3.) On December 6, 1928, the plaintiff's attorneys obtained an order under Rule 494 of the High Court Rules for taxation of the bill. The bill was carried in by the plaintiff's attorneys and on September 4, 1929, the Taxing Master gave his ultimate decision allowing two counsel, having upheld the plaintiff's objection to the disallowance of two counsel. The Taxing Master also made an order under Rule 534 that the plaintiff's attorney who had brought in the bill should pay the costs of the taxation, one-sixth having been taxed off the bill. The plaintiff's attorneys took in objections to that on September 28, 1929, and the Taxing Master gave a judgment on January 8, 1930, reversing his previous decision. The result was that although the Taxing Master had on the original taxation decided against the plaintiff, he upheld the plaintiff's objections, duty taken in, both as to the allowance of two counsel and as to the one- sixth rule, holding ultimately with regard to the latter that the taxation was a party and party action, and not one as between attorney and client.