RADHAKRISHNA CHETTY Vs. MISS TECKLA SCHOMBERG

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question to be decided in this revision relates to the jurisdictional value placed by the plaintiff in her suit for redemption in which she asked for certain surplus profits to be decreed in her favour in addition. The lower Court relying on Jalaldeen Marakayar V/s. Vijayasami (1915) 29 M.L.J. 142 : I.L.R. 39 Mad. 447 and Grandhi Pothanna V/s. Satyananda Charyulu , held that the value which the plaintiff had placed on her relief for redemption would cover the relief in regard to surplus profits as well and that the latter need not be valued separately. The defendants have filed the present revision to test the correctness of this order.

(2.) Since the value, determinable for the computation of. court-fees and for purposes of jurisdiction, is, under the provisions of Section 8 of the Suits Valuation Act, to be the same, the determination of the latter would depend on the decision as to the requisite court-fee required on the present plaint. Learned Counsel for the petitioners contends that the plaintiff is asking for two "distinct subjects" within the meaning of Section 17 of the Court-Fees Act and the plaint is therefore chargeable with the aggregate amount of the fees to which the plaint would be liable, when embracing either of such subjects separately. The court-fees are, unless otherwise provided, to be paid ad valorem and if the plaintiff is asking for two distinct subjects, it would follow that the fee would be chargeable for each subject separately. But the question is whether the relief claimed by the plaintiff for surplus profits is a distinct subject.

(3.) Reliance was placed by learned Counsel for the petitioners in this connection on Nilakantan Nambudripad V/s. Ananthkrishna Aiyar , but that case does not bear out his contention as two distinct alternative reliefs forming different matters were being claimed in that case and the court-fee was required to be paid in respect of each relief separately. The claim for redemption in that suit was based upon the alleged right of the plaintiff as a mortgagor while the alternative relief was based on a contract for a further mortgage which was distinct from the earlier mortgage right. As the alternative claims were held to comprise distinct matters which could have been made the grounds for separate suits, they were held to form "distinct subjects" within the meaning of Section 17 of the Court-Fees Act. It was, however, stated in that judgment that "where reliefs are claimed in the alternative with reference to the same cause of action, Section 17 would not govern the case." This observation is fatal to the petitioners contention and when this was pointed out by me to their learned Counsel, he had to concede it.