B BRIJ GOPAL Vs. BSURAJ KARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is the plaintiff's appeal and is directed against an order rejecting his plaint. The suit, out of which this appeal has arisen, was instituted to obtain a declaration that the entire family property in the hands of the plaintiff, as the head of a joint family belonged equally to the plaintiff and the male defendant, defendant 1, and that certain documents executed by certain deceased members of the family did not affect the jointness of the family.

(2.) When the suit was filed, the Munsarim reported that the relief called for payment of an additional court-fee of Rs. 10, as, in the opinion of the Munsarim, there were two declarations involved in the relief. Thereupon the plaintiff got the relief amended, and the Court decided that the court-fee paid, namely, Rs. 10, was sufficient.

(3.) Defendant 1 in his written statement, filed on 17 July 1928, took the plea that the court-fee paid was insufficient. He did not ask that the question of court- fee should be tried as a preliminary issue. Before any issues could be framed, in the case, the Munsarim made a second report on 4 September 1919 and stated that in view of a decision contained in Arunachalam Chetty V/s. Rangasamy Pillai [1915] 38 Mad. 922 he was of opinion that the plaintiff ought to pay an additional court-fee of Rs. 1,415 being the ad valorem court-fee payable on the value of the suit fixed for the purposes of jurisdiction.